Sick Zoo's Help!

Carressa

New member
Let me start by saying Mucho Reef is my hero:)

I am and avid Zoanthid lover and have been for several years.
I try very hard to prevent any problems in my tanks by being a very observant tank owner. I check water prams regularly and do regular water changes and run a quarantine tank to avoid problems from newcomers to the tank. I watch over my lil zoo collection like a hawk.

Well out of the blue I have started to have problems with some zoo's. And this happens very rapidly which is why I am concerned as to what the problem is. It seems to happen 1 colony at a time.

The colony will look just fine be fully extended and then the next day they will be withdrawn....but into a very very tight polyp. By the next day the polyp will have become even smaller. Upon very close inspection there are no bugs to be found except the occasional amphipod
.
I try moving them into a swifter current but this does not help. It only takes 4 days and they will be completely gone. I had a small colony that I quarantined so I could see if there were any internal parasites that perhaps I missed but there was nothing to be found. They just simply melt away into nothing.

I would appreciate any ideas or help anyone can provide on this.
Thank you.
 
That's a poser. I'm not a zoa keeper---not for 10 years. But the behavior seems to indicate something 'targeting' a particular lot, and yet you don't see it.
1. try looking at night with a flashlight and magnifying glass.
2. in the case it's a microorganism, you might try running a 1 micron filter for a significant amount of time and seeing if you have anything turn up there, if it's possibly freefloating: a jeweler's loupe [extreme magnification glass] might help you spot anything live that turns up on the filter.
 
It sounds like amphipod destruction to me. Thats pretty much exactly how they did me. If your seeing amphipods on the colonies then...

Do you have any large pod predators in the tank?
 
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