Tubb Blue Zoas

Z

ZoaMaster09

New member
Ok about 3-4 weeks ago I brought a 12+ heads of Tubb Blues and everything was great. Then suddenly they closed and haven't all open up completely.
I have check my water quality, have tested for all I can think of right now. I think it was the light shock. At the store they were under MH then I placed them in T5's and they did ok for 5-6 days and then all hell broke loose.
They are now under two 250 MH I have tried to moved them around in different areas of the tank but these guy just don't want to open up completely. I'm frustrated, who here has Tubb Blue Zoas and will you be kind and tell me what are you doing to make sure they stay open/healthy ?
 
am following this cause when i upgraded my tank and switched all my livstock over i had some radioactive eagle eyes that were doing awsome for a year in my 90 then when i put them in my new tank they have not opened up since that was 2 weeks ago. now one polyp out of hundreds. enough to make me sick
 
I moved all of my livestock to a new and one of my colonies didn't open for 4 1/2 weeks, when they did start opening it was one polyp at a time. Now they are all open and thriving.
pic15.jpg
 
mine have closed for even a week or so, for unknown reasons. I have recognized that they do much better on the sandbed of my 90g under 6x54w T5 ATI powermodule lights...higher and they close up for me. My colors are great, and I've doubled my number of polyps to 30+ in less than 6 months. I know that's not fast growth, but these grow slowly for me.
 
Mine have done fine mounted on plugs and rocks for several years and I don't typically keep them on the sand bed. I have kept them under an assortment of metal halides 400W to 175 Watt with actinic supplementation from VHOs and PCs. How are your other Zoas doing? Do all new Zoas have problems or just these?
 
all my other zoas are doing great. if they close up they will reopen in like hours the most.

The closed Tubb Blues
IMG00053-20091019-0034.jpg


The rest of the zoas
KeedReds2-1.jpg

ThePinkie.jpg

redppleaters-1.jpg
 
Mine did the same thing at a recent frag swap. I had about 50 Zoa frags and most opened up just fine with the blues and Kedds Redds being stubborn. I think it may have something to do with tempature.....I would assume my frag tank was cooler than normal given I just hauled the gang 45 minutes from their normal quarters. :-)

I got them home and the next day all are happy as a clam under the exact same lights used at the swap. BTW...the water used at the swap came right out of their home tank so I at least it was familiar in some ways - PH could of changed I guess seeing as the tank was exposed to the great outdoors.

I should of mentioned lights were MH, I used to have them under T5 and the darn things lost all their blue color. Turned a very nice chocolate brown with a mint green center, back in MH they have blued up again nicely. Kedds seem to do great in either MH or T5.....go figure ??
 
I know mine like low light, I had them near the top of my tank and they lost color (4x39w T5). After about a week on my sandbed they have already started to color up. I would suggest you keep them low with a good amount of flow and do NOT touch them. They will eventually come around.
 
hmm seems like everyone says they will open. this i am glad to hear i got some plys about a week and a have ago anf they still have not opened. soo i am hopeing cause they were soooo nice in the tank prior to me purchasing them.
 
if they really are tubbs blues, Or a similar behaving morph, you dont need to keep them low to have them show their brilliant blue color

Too much too fast will bleach anything, but tubbs blues and similar behaving blue morphs can take a ton of light and they still remain a brilliant blue. keeping their brilliant blue in many conditions is part of what makes them so desirable, besides just being nice and blue of course

not every polyp that is blue is the same. Whether or not it is a decendant from tubbs colony doesnt mean squat imo, as it can be either the same exact species or very similar you found elsewhere..... but if you bleach it in high light you either did it too fast, or it is a polyp that does in fact have different characteristics than tubbs and similar

just a point to ponder

here is a pic of them in the top half of the tank under 10k xm's. They are getting more light here than most higher kelvin tanks have directly at the surface. this skirts will lighten up in high light but the blue does not.

tblues.jpg
 
I menat to post more....3 year old got me occupied..........




similar to tubbs or not, flow and water parameters are your weapons to heal sick polyps. I would suggest performing a couple of decent sized water changes and figure out why you have the brown slime going on, and get some strong flow going to those sick polyps. Note strong does not mean high velocity, but high flow with low velocity. It will help them heal along

GL
 
I recently bought some tubbs blues and some atl triple reds. After being nice and open for 2 weeks, they both closed up tight. After a couple days I freaked and started dosing vitamin C. A week later, the tubbs are open again but the reds melted. All my other polyps are looking better too. Did the C help?....I think yes, but no scientific proof or anything....
 
I keep my tubbs blues on the sandbed and they have always been a brilliant blue color. They grow fairly quickly too. I got 6 polyps back in mid June. Now I have more than 30. They have stopped growing because they are on a small rock and don't want to grow on the sand.

plantankerously, I found that atl triple reds are a sensitive zoa IME. Mine have stayed closed up and melted several times. I got them at the same time as the tubbs blues. They too have gone from about 5 polyps to over 30 now. Some days they look great, others not so much.
 
So you guys know the Tubbs Blues are coming around, in fact all of the rest of the Zoas are looking very good (all opened nicely). Here is what I did.................a 30% water change and made sure that the temperature has stayed constant every since, cleaned the algae from the back glass, Adjusted the protein skimmer (made sure everything was working the way it should), Cut down on the amount of light per day and last but not least added a sock in the sump to trap all the unwanted particles.

PS: I think my biggest enemy has been the temperature and the salinaty (was a little bit high) in the tank
 
Both will cause problems with them. They are a lower light coral.

Remember you folks with MH when you say that you have them under 400 watts they are not necessarily getting the full 400 watts of energy. MH is a point source light and as you move further away from directly underneath the bulb the amount of light energy falls dramatically so it may be that they are up there at the top of the tank but off to the side by more than 6" or so and you are getting allot less energy on them than you would with a T5 setup.

For comparison here is a shot of my mother colony under ATI 39w T5's:
101909tubsbluescolony.jpg
 
Yes I moved them, one inch up and six inches to the right to be exact :)
I have also have been adding strounim in the sump every four days and I have noticed a change with the corals
 
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