Problem with Zoas. Need help!

[Dsotto]

Yes I have had colonies in the past that have died but I found out what the problem was. This time everything looks perfect. They were doing fine one day and the next not so much. Like I said I've had these for a year so it's kind of weird.

 

[A. Grandis]

Thanks for all of your attention to my thread. I do appreciate it. I'll try to remove that thing today. my tank parameters are as follows.

Tank 6 months old
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 3
PH 8
Magnesium 1410
Calcium 460
Salinity 1.025
Temp 77
phosphates 0
Alk 9
Lighting Maxspect Razor 16k 160w whites (50%) blues (60%)

Tank inhabitants are very small yellow tang, one clown, one green chromes, coral banded shrimp, bubble anemone, clean up crew. The closest thing to the polyps are a mushroom and a plate that are about 6in away. I'll post a pic to help. This is the 40 breeder in my signature for the rest of my equipment.

You're welcome!
All I can say is to wait and see what happens, besides you can think about some points here...

1) Check if the yellow tang isn't eating algae around the polyps once an a while. They normally don't eat the polyps though!!! They like to graze around them and therefore the polyps keep closing, of course. Yellow tangs could eat polyps like crazy, yes. I've had one, but that's rare!!! It will depend on that particular individual fish.
Normally they only grab algae around them!!!

2) Make sure your "cleanup crew" isn't irritating the polyps, and check at night (an hour or so after lights go off) to see if you find any predators!!

3) Try to do a 10% water change every week, if you don't.

4) If you've got the LEDs running for long time and never changed your light system it is less probable to be the problem, but still many say that their LEDs were guilty of closed polyps and when they went back to T5s and/or their MHs the polyps opened again. Go figure... That's one of the reasons I just can't trust LEDs yet. Not saying that's the problem, but other people did report such things here and there, so it's good to have that in mind ...

Good luck and go slow with any changes, if so.
Stability is very important for zoas.
Leave them alone and watch 'em for now.
Who knows tomorrow they'll be open?

Grandis.

 

[slin1977]

What are you using for phosphate control?
Looks to me from your photo like what ever it is is too efficient.

 

[A. Grandis]

What are you using for phosphate control?
Looks to me from your photo like what ever it is is too efficient.

I hope he's not using GFO with zoas.

I'm going to be gone for a while, so...
Good luck!!

Grandis.

 

[Dsotto]

I am using a small amount of GFO mixed with my carbon. I don't have a good phosphate test kit. It's the API kit and always reads 0 it seems on both tanks. I run the water pretty quickly through the reactor. I had a algae problem back when I first started the tank because of the dry base rock that I started with. It has since resolved and stopped leaching phosphates. GFO is no good for Zoes?

 

[slin1977]

Lets try running the carbon passively in a bag say no more than a cup.
Take the GFO off line for a while to see the effect.
As said before I think your phos control is a bit too efficient ,
You will need to find a balance there. I would use bacteria driven phos control like vodka sugar vinegar, when that's not up doing it , I use liquid phos binder like Brightwell phos e'

Your bubble algea, you need to manually remove. It is just a phase that your tank is going through. Eventually you'll no longer have them in your tank.
Good luck .

 

[Dsotto]

Thanks for your help. I took my fish out due to an ich problem so the tank will be sitting without fish for 8 weeks. I'll shut down the reactor for a bit. The bubble algae appears to not be growing. Thanks again.