something in my zoas

[kg4izw]

Anyone know what this is growing in my zoas?
It looks kind of like a cotton ball. At first I thought it was new zoa tissue, but as it has grown over the past couple of weeks, it looks like it is covering the lower zoa tissue. They open each day as normal and their color is great, but I worry they will not be able to reproduce with this covering their base. The polyps in that area are sticking up a bit higher, I guess to keep it from covering them. I had to turn the light off for a few minutes so they would close up, and then I turned it back on to take a quick photo.

It is visible in the bottom left corner of the photo.
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u123/kg4izw/zoas1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

 

[TOYTEK]

http://melevsreef.com/id/zoas.html
Just was looking at this site earlier. Marc Levenson list White Fungus as a predator of zoanthids, but he doesn't have a pic of it. Maybe if noone here can ID it, he might could help.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Looks like white fungus to me, too.

Here's an useful site for zoanthid predetor and diseases (no white fungus article, though):

http://www.zoaid.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=384

Tomoko

 

[Philip Root]

It is a white sponge, sponge is easy to kill, leave in out of water for 2 or 3 min. and scrape what you can get off.

 

[04mach1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9635412#post9635412 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Philip Root
It is a white sponge, sponge is easy to kill, leave in out of water for 2 or 3 min. and scrape what you can get off.

I agree,I had it on some zoos and scraped it off and they looked fine afterwards.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Hmm, now that you mentioned that, it does look more like a sponge invasion.

I only had yellow sponges invade my zoanthid in the past. My sponge looked more spongy with a bunch of tiny holes. As others pointed out, scraping them off outside of the tank worked well for me, too.

Tomoko

 

[kg4izw]

Thanks. I'm glad it's nothing serious.
I might try to pull it out tonight.
Now that I'm thinking about it, there are two other yellow sponges located in cracks between pieces of live rock that are growing fast too !

 

[RoadkillRich]

hi all
i have it on my live rock all over.
i dont know how to post pictures here but if some one could email me i can sent a picture.
thanks.

Rich

 

[RoadkillRich]

sorry
it might help if i put my email out there,da.
roadkillrich@cox.net

 

[kg4izw]

hey Roadkill,
It was indeed a sponge, and it was easy to remove with my tweezers. However, when you are pulling it off, be sure to hold the zoas onto your rock while pulling off the sponge. I pulled a huge plug of zoas out with my sponge intruder. So I just put my new zoa frag about two inches from the original, and hope they will some day grow together.
PS- To post pics, I got an account with Photobucket and make an IMG link to my posting. It's easy to learn to do. Just read Photobucket instructions, then read Reef Central instructions about picture post links. Put them both together, and you can make some amazing things happen.