PLEASE HELP - Zoas and Palys are dying!

Lou Cifer

Lou Cifer

Member
Hello everyone,

Well, I don't know what the problem is, but some of my Zoas and Palys are closing up and seem to by dying!
They seem to be imploding. Closing up so much that they are hardly noticeable.
I also added a Branching Hammer frag about 3 weeks now and the polyps barely come out to the base of the skeleton. They were extended for about the 1st 2 days and that's it.
And on the other hand, I bought a single polyp of Purple Deaths about 2 months ago and it seems to be doing just fine, in fact it has turned into a 5 polyp frag and growing.

My tank has been running since April and I just started slowly adding little frags here and there in the last 2 months.

My water parameters are:
pH= 8.2
Ammonia= 0
Nitrite= 0
Nitrate= 5-10
Phosphate= 0
Calcium= 440-450
Magnesium= 1350
dKH= 9.0
sg=1.024

I started dosing Vodka 3 days ago to help bring the nitrates down.

What am I doing wrong?
Could my lighting be too strong for some of these corals?
I have 2x250 XM 15k MH's and 2x54 Giesemann T5's.
The bulbs are 2 months old.'

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Maybe cut out the vodka dosing or cut the dosing amount. Always start with a little instead of a lot. I dosed vodka before, and it was okay, but sometimes it hurts peoples corals, like this case. People have lost colonies of sps before. Haven't heard of it affecting zoas or palys before though.
 
the problem has been going on for a few weeks. I started doing Vodka 3 days ago and am only dosing .5ml's to start with. I hightly doubt the vodka dosing has anything to do with it.
I am going very slow with that.
 
I had some same problems with my zoa's too, all I did was more water changes, dip and brush some of the zoa's that I could and replace some of the zoa's. I almost totally lost my 4 polyp of Sunny D's and after all that I have 8 polyps and groing strong. Make sure you don't have a bad hitchicker from your new frag. Check to see if you might have gotten some zoa eating snails or black nudibranches.

Michael
 
I've been doing weekly 15-25 gal water changes for about 6 weeks now because of elevated nitrate levels. I'll keep an eye out for critters but it doesn't look like they're being eaten by anything. They're just kinda shriveling up.
I've already lost my Forest muse palys, Rainbows palys and my Jokers, Xmen and Watermelons aren't looking so hot either!
 
I've noticed that every time I do a water change and add lugol's iodine my zoa and palys puff up. Are you dosing iodine?
 
One thing I've learned my own experience is stop dosing vitamin C, iodine, etc... After I left them alone, to my amazement they actually did much better.

I say stop dosing and do some frequent water changes and see if they get better. I'd probably even try a freshwater dip just in case there were parasites/pests. Try running some activated carbon. If you're funning phosban might wanna stop that for the time being as well...

Good luck!
 
I'm having a similar problem with my palys. I even isolated some and inspected for all hitchhikers but so far nothing. They seem to close up and then dissolve. It's only the ones that are the same type as AOG's and PE's. My nuke greens and organism are fine and growing well. I really don't get it.
 
I don't get it either!!! Some of my frags are just fine while others are not. I never had problems like this in the past.
I haven't done anything differently, if anything I've been much more patient
and have added things at a much slower rate.
I haven't started dosing Vitamin C, but I've been reading the thread on the topic and I'm thinking of giving it a try.
I don't know what else to do!
These things aren't cheap and I'm already broke! I'd hate to lose them all!
 
Maybe you should take this time to address your nitrate level, see what the cause of it is. Do you do water changes with RO/DI water or tap. Are you using some sort of canister filter or use bio balls? Take those out and don't use them.
 
jmbanh:
Well, I do regular water changes with RO/DI water. And since my nitrate levels went up about 6 weeks ago,
I started doing weekly 20-25 gal water changes and they have remained at about 10. I don't use a canister filter or bio balls.
I have cut back on feeding. I feed once a day, and not a lot, and sometimes I skip days. I do add nori everyday for my tangs.

Zoagirl:
Unfortuntely my camera isn't working for some reason, so I can't provide any pics.
They are basically just closing up and seem to be shrinking and melting away.
 
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