Topic of the Week - 03/14/11. What was your greatest challenge?

kichimark · Mar 14, 2011

If you are reading this then most likely you have been keeping zoanthids. As with most things in life there is success and failures. Even the most experienced aquarists, both amatuer and professional, have lost and had problems with certain corals/animals.

Question - What was your greatest challenge/obstacle with zoanthids AND how did you overcome it?.

I will be the first here to state I have had problems with zoas and I have even lost some. Two of my greatest obstacles that I fixed was with one related to flow which was fixed by placing the colony in different spots. It turned out this particular zoa liked a higher flow. The other was a bad case of zoa pox which was fixed by Furan-2 dips. The Furan dips I learned first hand from the people on RC and I am very thankful for that.

One of my failures that I could not figure out was the melting of a "pink zipper" colony I had. My parameters were stable for months and every other coral/zoanthid was growing. Then one day it just started to get smaller and melt even when placed in different locations and such things as lighting/water chemistry/any pests were looked into. I still do not know what the cause was and this is what bugs me the most. It is the not knowing.

So again let us read your story :reading:. Don't be ashamed if you lost a colony and dont want to post. We have all been there and can relate. :beer:.

650-IS350 · Mar 14, 2011

Great topic, will post response this week.

mallorieGgator · Mar 14, 2011

The first MAJOR problem I had was that I was cleaning the tank glass and the glass tops with windex....BAD idea. I thought that even if it dried it was ok. Not so much, all of the zoas closed because I had a major ammonia spike and eveything was fine eventually but for the time, things were closed and spitting out inside parts...it was bad. lol. I did a 30% water change and left the tops off the tank to make 100% sure gas exchange happened.
Second smaller problem I had was getting my zoas to open really well and grow quickly. I added a second powerhead and things are going crazy now. Growth is really good as well as extension and opening of the polyps.

kichimark · Mar 15, 2011

mallorieGgator said:
The first MAJOR problem I had was that I was cleaning the tank glass and the glass tops with windex....BAD idea. I thought that even if it dried it was ok. Not so much, all of the zoas closed because I had a major ammonia spike and eveything was fine eventually but for the time, things were closed and spitting out inside parts...it was bad. lol. I did a 30% water change and left the tops off the tank to make 100% sure gas exchange happened.
Second smaller problem I had was getting my zoas to open really well and grow quickly. I added a second powerhead and things are going crazy now. Growth is really good as well as extension and opening of the polyps.

Wow excellent post on the dangers of using windex. I never use it near my tanks myself. I am so glad everything is working out now.

rogersb · Mar 15, 2011

I believe I am having issues with alkalinity that are stressing my zoas right now. My lps and sps are thriving but the zoas are half melting then coming back then half melting again over and over this winter. It's my first winter with kalk in my ATO and I have been having trouble getting the saturation right. If it snows then there is massive evap and tons of kalk gets dumped in. If there is no snow, less than normal. It's been an up and down all winter with kh anywhere from 6-12. I have since lowered my saturation and check the level of kh every few days to manually increase it with randy's two part.

mallorieGgator · Mar 15, 2011

rogersb said:
I believe I am having issues with alkalinity that are stressing my zoas right now. My lps and sps are thriving but the zoas are half melting then coming back then half melting again over and over this winter. It's my first winter with kalk in my ATO and I have been having trouble getting the saturation right. If it snows then there is massive evap and tons of kalk gets dumped in. If there is no snow, less than normal. It's been an up and down all winter with kh anywhere from 6-12. I have since lowered my saturation and check the level of kh every few days to manually increase it with randy's two part.

Check your pH too because Kalk will cause your pH to swing which is causing an instability and most corals don't do well with swings in pH.

mallorieGgator · Mar 15, 2011

kichimark said:
Wow excellent post on the dangers of using windex. I never use it near my tanks myself. I am so glad everything is working out now.

I use warm water on the glass tops now and water/vinegar on the front glass now.

kichimark · Mar 15, 2011

So a hundred views and less than a handful of replies? Come on people, don't be shy.

JustClownin · Mar 15, 2011

My greatest challenge has been dealing with predators. I have had zoanthid eating spiders and sundial snails pop up. For me, beating it has been watching for random heads disappearing, and then pulling the colony out and giving it a good one over with my eye. The sundial snails are easy to spot if they are on the colony, but the spiders can be really difficult to spot.

But I eliminated most of them at first by pulling them all doing a dip with coral rx and following the directions on the package.

The problem with the spiders is gone, and I think I have just now dug the last sundial snail out.

Its pretty straight forward.

kichimark · Mar 15, 2011

JustClownin said:
My greatest challenge has been dealing with predators. I have had zoanthid eating spiders and sundial snails pop up. For me, beating it has been watching for random heads disappearing, and then pulling the colony out and giving it a good one over with my eye. The sundial snails are easy to spot if they are on the colony, but the spiders can be really difficult to spot.

But I eliminated most of them at first by pulling them all doing a dip with coral rx and following the directions on the package.

The problem with the spiders is gone, and I think I have just now dug the last sundial snail out.

Its pretty straight forward.

Hello JustClownin and thanks for your reply. I was starting to think the vast majority of peeps did not have any problems

. I had a spider once. OOOO i hate them with a passion. How long did it take for you to get rid of them?:beer:

Snookster · Mar 16, 2011

I just got through the Kalk battle too. Not to the same degree as rogersb, but I didn't pay close enough attention to the drip rate on my dosing. Almost finished off an awesome colony of lunar eclipses. Didn't seem to harm anything else too much. I went to 2 part and slowed it down a lot. Kalk's too dangerous for me. After all, nothing good happens fast.

MUCHO REEF · Mar 16, 2011

I've always agressively pursued that which interested me and just went full steam at it till I learned or achieved a goal I'd set for myself. I learned a long time ago that reefing/polyp keeping, is nothing you rush into. That was my greatest challenge. Reefing has taught me to be very very patient. "Fools rush in, ....where wise men follow", and that is what I've learned. That patience has taught me to keep my hands out of my tank and to monitor and observe what goes on within my tank. One who lacks patience in this hobby will make mucho mistakes, most of which can be avoided.

Mucho Reef

JustClownin · Mar 16, 2011

kichimark said:
Hello JustClownin and thanks for your reply. I was starting to think the vast majority of peeps did not have any problems . I had a spider once. OOOO i hate them with a passion. How long did it take for you to get rid of them?:beer:

Its been about 6 months now.

I found out I had a zoanthid spider when I pulled my "blow pop" colony to frag it because it was doing awful, and I just wanted to try and save a few heads so I could propagate it somewhere else. But while I was doing my magic with the tweezers and exacto, I found the little punk chilling in the middle of the colony. They are hard to see and a major pita. It was no coincidence that once I pulled him and gave him a good smush that the colony was fully open and spreading.

And MUCHO is right. The first coral I went after were the zoanthids, and thought I was in the clear since they were labeled as a beginner coral, but that is extremely misleading. I think they can be extremely temperamental, and trying to generalize the requirements of them is sort of dumb.

650-IS350 · Mar 16, 2011

biggest challange: the sudden demise of fully healthy colonies that have been thriving for a long time to lose to either fungus, white slime, Melt or for other unknown reason while other zoanthids that are pretty much right beside it, touching them remain unharmed.

kichimark · Mar 16, 2011

650-IS350 said:
biggest challange: the sudden demise of fully healthy colonies that have been thriving for a long time to lose to either fungus, white slime, Melt or for other unknown reason while other zoanthids that are pretty much right beside it, touching them remain unharmed.

Have you ever saved a colony from melting or slime Charles?

650-IS350 · Mar 16, 2011

1/2 and 1/2

I've used different types of meds/dips besides your usual cures like furan/hydroxide etc..

jeff@zina.com · Mar 16, 2011

Biggest challenge was original placement. Having to move them when they were established was a pain. Especially since some moved simply because I thought the two looked great side-by-side and never considered the colony expanding. Choosing a tank where I couldn't easily control flow (Started with a Nano Cube) caused some of these issues as well, now I'd just move the power head slightly or whatever.

Jeff

kichimark · Mar 17, 2011

jeff@zina.com said:
Biggest challenge was original placement. Having to move them when they were established was a pain. Especially since some moved simply because I thought the two looked great side-by-side and never considered the colony expanding. Choosing a tank where I couldn't easily control flow (Started with a Nano Cube) caused some of these issues as well, now I'd just move the power head slightly or whatever.

Jeff

Ah yes. Did one colony overtake another?

ANYONE ELSE?

SIR PATRICK · Mar 17, 2011

I still have issues with random unexplained die off, when least expected. Have a feeling 20% of polyp meltdown in my tank will be unexplained, and the other 80% will be explained or prevented.

Zoas are said to be a begginer coral- till its time to figure out why the melted, lol!!!

kichimark · Mar 17, 2011

SIR PATRICK said:
I still have issues with random unexplained die off, when least expected. Have a feeling 20% of polyp meltdown in my tank will be unexplained, and the other 80% will be explained or prevented.

Zoas are said to be a begginer coral- till its time to figure out why the melted, lol!!!

lol so true. Have you ever had one start to melt and save it Sir Patrick?

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