My Battle and recovery with Zoa Pox

[Jaculus]

I have had this particular 120 gal reef for a few years. Started like most with zoas, palys, shrooms etc. I have grown it into a full MIXED tank with Chalice and Acros growing like weeds.

So all that to say I have a healthy matured tank that I maintain very stable parameters and I dose to maintain CA, Alk, and fairly high Mg levels. I have a 125 gal sump refugium in the basement also that I grow Calurpa and Chaeto (giving away a gallon or so every week).

A couple weeks ago I noticed a few of my zoa colonies closing up more than normal. I saw just a few white specks (but not lesions) on a few zoa stalks. I also noticed a slight increase in the asternia population. So I figured I needed to reduce the asternia numbers with a pair of harlequins. My local LFS's did not have any so I decided to try to remove them manually for a little while.

A few days ago though I began to notice quite a bit more of the zoa colonies closed up. So I took some pics and zoomed in on them and saw lots and lots of white specks hanging on AND quite a few "lesions" or white specks into the skin of the stalk of the zoa.

These pics are from two days ago. before the first treatment RIGHT after moving the zoas to the small tank. Please feel free to comment on your own experience with Zoa Pox and how you treated yours. This is my first outbreak of ANYTHING in four years or so. I did my research on this and decided to use the Furan 2 like most have done but I wanted to try to treat the entire colony with the manufacturer dose of 1 packet for 10 gal on the first day. Then the concentration they sit in all day would be reduced each day with water changes.

 

[Jaculus]

So I set up a 10 gal tank with a reefbreeders light in my basement with just mechanical filtration (small HOB filter) and a couple pumps to keep lots of movement in the tank. I removed nealry all the zoas and palys even thought he palys appeared to not be affected. I put them all in the 10 gal tank.

I also bought some Furan 2. I know the method used by most to clear pox is to treat the colonies in a cups or containers to limit the exposure to higher concentration fo Furan 2 for 15 to 30 min but I decided to TRY to treat these with ONE packet for the entire 10 gal for the first 24 hours.

The plan was this

• Treat the full 10 gal with one packet on the first day
• Second Day - 5 gal water change and use two buckets one with two gallons of tank water and the other with rinse saltwater. I planned to treat each colony dipped in this stronger solution for 20 min for two more days.
• Third day I would repeat the 5 gal water change (effecively reducing the furan2 concentration to 25% of original). This day I would also do some spot cleaning with tweezers removing all snails asternias etc and repeating the 20 min dip in fresh soltuion.
• 4th through 7th day I was only going to do 2.5 gal water changes and NO dips to allow them to heal up.

I know it is suggested that a full repeat of the treatment is done for one more week.

Here are the pics from yesterday after the first full dip treatment but before the 2nd treatment yesterday. Notice almost no lesions and just a few hang on type white specks that might be dead flesh.

 

[Jaculus]

Today they look much better already. BUT I am noticing the palys are not opening up like the zoas are. They were not visibly affected by the pox but I wanted to treat them also even though that may have been a mistake. Notice the buckets,, one looks green (its actually yellowish with the Furan 2 in it but looks green in the blue bucket) and the other with clean rinse saltwater. Most of the pics are taken with me purposely aiming high flow on them to get them to close up for the pics. I want to see the stalks for the pics.

After today I will not retreat again for another 3 or 4 days. And I will just do 2 or 3 gal water changes. My goal is to see if the pox will come back in any form, I will retreat them another 3 days then 4 days to heal before back in the main DT but I think I will reduce the treatment time to 10 min for the last treatments.

We have the LEAR frag fest in Northern Ohio coming up later next month. The goal is to have no signs of the pox and have the zoas returned to the tank by then since I plan to buy more frags lol.

I am also setting up a frag tank 20"x30"x12" for the smaller frags and to cultivate more frags.

 

[Jaculus]

Just a couple pics of the palys

 

[Johnson.cody]

I had the same problem as you. It sucks seeing zoas fade out like that. I don't have any pics but I did the same thing that you did and everything ended up being all right. Good luck I'll be following along.

 

[Jone]

you sure the zoas had the pox?
didnt see any pimples or postules like pox causes on zoas in your first set of pictures..
zoas closing up are result of many other issues..not just pox