Ok, where did I start going wrong with my zoas?

Have you checked your tank after the lights went out??? About an hour or 2 after dark, sometimes preds come out... I have a bunch of those Asterinas in my tank with no affect... But in my 75, I had an outbreak of "fuzz" that seemed to make some of my zoo's uncomfortable... I think its some sort of Algae... Is it Greyish in color and cover the substrate like a carpet??? I'm still battling it with weekly water changes and heavy skimming... But LMK if you have pics of your "fuzz"...
 
I'll see what I can do on the fuzz picture. It sounds exactly like what you're describing though. And it has to be some kind of an irritant because everything that comes into contact with it tries to avoid it. I've already posted how my frilly shrooms, who normally expand out and touch the sand from where they are actually were keeping the lower part of themselves curled up so as not to touch this stuff on the sand. I think....think, I'm making some headway on it since revamping my sump, doing a large water change, bumping my Mg up, and running my canister filter with the phosphate remover in it. The stuff seems to be a little less anyway.

For anyone reading this, it is just as described above, a greyish fuzz that develops bubbles in it towards the end of the day. It's almost like a jr sized dinoflagellate. It has some blobs in it too. It covered the majority of my substrate and up many of the rocks, but mostly on the bottom substrate. It seemed like it popped up overnight.

Pics I do have, a couple of what my zoas that are pictured above currently look like (I need to work with my white balance a bit, color isn't right on, but will do):

The purples
DSCN0381.jpg


and my eagle eyes
DSCN0382.jpg
 
that sounds kinda like cyanobacteria, except its not the cyan color. hmm.... have you checked your phosphate levels? it is possible that could be the culprit.
 
yep, posted that they are undetectable per salifert test. I'm also running a full container of PHOSaR currently. Plus this doesn't really behave in the same manner as cyano, or at least any that I've ever had or seen.
 
I can't remember if I suggested to check your tank for silicates...I had issues with that and lost a few zoas.....After getting Phosgaurd, it also removes silicates they started to come back after about 2 weeks. It might be some kinda diatom also which irritate zoas....
 
I can't remember if I suggested to check your tank for silicates...I had issues with that and lost a few zoas.....After getting Phosgaurd, it also removes silicates they started to come back after about 2 weeks. It might be some kinda diatom also which irritate zoas....
 
I've had mixed feelings about the whole silicate thing because of threads like this one in Randy's forum:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=863892&highlight=silicates


and his article on them here where he actually doses them:


http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2003/feature.htm

One thing that is definite is that the fuzz is currently, albeit sloooooowly, receding. I'm thinking about moving some of my main zoa colonies from my big tank and into my 10 gal, while leaving frags of each in the larger tank to monitor their condition. Interesting thing...my 10 gal get its mix and topoff water from the same place as my bigger tank. Yet the smaller tank has no algae problem with no fuge, no skimmer, and no carbon/phosphate remover. I just do occasional water changes and topoffs as needed. This is what had me thinking about the salt earlier.
 
Personally I think your still recovering from your power outage where i think you had some things die in your tank and fueled your algae outbreak. Maybe that algae (or maybe better said, very likely) that algae bloom irritated your zoo's to the point where they are not opening like they did and the color shifted.. IME it take a while for zoo's to recover from an occurance like what you experienced.

About a month ago I had an occurance of my Alk got dangerously low and I had several corals fade really bad. Even my zoo's are not as bright and colorful they were and they arent as big.

I'd just try and keep your water parameters as close to natural sea water and wait it out.

Good luck!
Chris
 
There are different forms of silicates, the silicates I had a problem with once removed changed the out come of my tank. Randy is dosing a specific silicate that doesn't result in the outbreak of diatom growth that we have issues with in our tanks. The stuff he is dosing is used up by the plankton that is generated with our tanks. From experience I can tell you if you have diatoms growing on the surfaces of your corals they will not open. I had this issue for weeks and everyday a few times a day I had to take a turkey baster and blow them off just to have to do it again.

What cwegescheide might be true also......
 
Can silicate testing differentiate between the two? It gets me wondering because our water here is absolutely horrible. We have to use a water softener or any appliances that use water like your dishwasher or water heater are trash within a year or two. TDS on my tapwater typically runs over 800. I have a large supply of DI resin as I like my RO/DI output to be zero at all times, however, this silicate thing bugs me as I understand they can get through your RO/DI. But then, like I said, I come back to one tank with problems, one without, water from the same source. I dunno. I worked alot on my 10g last night, actually drained most of the water did up a water change, moved the tank from one wall to another, re-set up all the rockwork, and refilled. Not sure if I have room to move my other zoanthids into it though. I have alot of small frags all over the place in my 10. I've had some folks local reading this who have volunteered some test kits they have for various things and will probably take them up on the offers if my bigger tank continues with its problems. Continued thanks to those of you who have contributed to trying to help me with this. :cool:
 
Actually, yes, albeit very slowly. The gray fuzz is diminishing and my tank is coming back to how it looked before. I have moved some of my zoanthids over to my 10g, where they seem a little happier. I have noticed that my eagle eyes in my big tank are getting more skirt extension on them and their color is deepening. I plan on doing another good sized water change in another week or so, but right now the tank overall seems pretty happy with the changes and the correction of some chemistry values.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8199610#post8199610 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by beaker77
You really need to frag some of those. They would look nice in my tank.:D
Click to expand...

The Eagle Eyes? I've got plenty. I've been holding off selling any lately while I was dealing with these issues. The frags I've got are kind of larger, probably close to 30 polyps.
 
You should see the Eagle Eyes I got from you before. They are starting to take over my tank.

I'm interested in buying a frag of all of the others whenever you frag them. I'm quickly transforming from a LPS to a Zoanthid nut.
 
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