Whats going on with these zoos?

bobafett

bobafett

New member
I have a 125 with mostly zoos. Every now and then I get this problem. The zoos shrivel up and look like PPE's. I have tried dips but it does nothing. I have since left them alone and some die and some make full recovery. I had the nudis over a year ago and I know its not them because I can't find any of them (or their eggs) in my tank and I know the path of destruction they leave. Check out the pics and let me know what you think.

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its an obvious path of destruction. its definitly not viral/bacterial.....as you would notice a mortality rate spread over a somewhat symetrical area. as infections spread "out".

my guess.....is that it is some sort of animal/invert who cruised through there and damaged them.

or....

do you have any corals nearby that puts out really long sweapers at night? it almost looks like a really long sweaper went through that area and gave them a pretty big sting. judging by the somewhat linear path of destruction.
 
The same thing happens to mine from time to time. After they look like what is happening to yours, the top "pinches" off. Later they usually make a full recovery. I have yet to figure out why. The only link I have found yet is maybe I added kalk too quickly. The problem has not reappeared since I stopped using and started using another calcium source. It only happens(ed) to three different colonies. Two came back and the third died.


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Watch your colonies and see if your amphidpods are nipping at them. I have seen them eating the lashes on my zoanthids and protopalythoas. I have witnessed this dozens of times under my moon lights. At first I thought they were just cleaning normal healthy polyps until I saw the little buggers ripping the green lashes off my PPE. At times they will clean a polyp of many or all of its lashes, and then it will cause the polyp to pinch, shrivel up, and close. If it was healthy polyp, usually they will recover after being close up for a long time, somtimes up to a month. Usually smaller polyps will not recover. The end of the polyp will usually turn white. Amphipods in general usually only eat dead or decaying tissue on corals and are beneficial most of the time, but every now you get one on a rampage and it can cause some damage. I generally notice that this occurs at night and more often to protopalythoas than other zoanthids. You always here people talking about how their PPE mysteriously died and these are the symptions I usually here associated with the death. I believe this is probably the number one reason many people have so much trouble keeping PPE and other protos. I have caught these little buggers red handed many times munching away like they are at an expensive seafood buffet. It is pretty easy to catch them when eating and I turkey baste them out and they become fish food:) If it is the amphipods causing your problem, you can add a stalker type fish and hopefully it can reduce the population.
 
I havent noticed any amphipods on them. I do have a CB Butterfly, a six line wrasse, and a cleaner wrasse in the tank and I hope they would take care of any amphipods that would be in the tank. I will however keep a closer look for them at night when the lights are out.

BTW... I did loose my small colony of real PPE's to this.
 
ahhhh........it may be the wrasses you have (not the 6line). i'm not too familiar with a cleaner wrasse...do they have teeth?

if the CBB or cleaner wrasse is looking for featherdusters/aptasia or pods/worms that may be nestled in b/w an area of zoa polyps......those two types of fish will literally rip through the zoa polyps to get to them.

i know people who have had trouble with CBB and certain wrasses when it comes to them hunting for their food and ripping up zoa polyps in the process. they arent after the zoa polyps themselves though. although, CBB's are so tricky, and all seem to be different, the CBB could be eating the tips off the zoa skirts....thinking they are aptasia/featherdusters which it normally likes to hunt.
 
This has been happening befor the CBB was added to the tank so its not a suspect. I'll keep an eye out for the wrasses.
 
I picked off a small starfish that was next to a colony. I'm not sure what they're called but they are white-ish, about the size of a dime and their legs are weird (some have four legs while some may have six). I remeber reading an article about them at GARF and they said they prey on SPS. Maybe they may be responsible?
 
Bobafett, For me it was to much light. Are your running metal halides. Could be it. Some zoanthids just can't take it. Most of my pinks and blues don't like it and tend to get the nipple look and then perish unless I move them to shade permanently. Try putting them in the shade .
 
I'm sure it's not the lighting because it is random all over the tank. I have never observed my fish picking at them and I can't find any predators at night with a flashlight. I'm thinking it may be some unknown disease (fungus or bacteria) because a colony may look great one day and the next it looks like crap. I have had zoos close up in the past but these look like their being sucked dry from the inside. I dealt with the nudibranchs over a year ago and the affected zoos didn't look this bad.
 
I'm not sure about this, but don't zoanthid spiders lay eggs inside the polyps. From what I here they live under the mat of the zoanthid colony and are rarely seen. Maybe this could be it. Just a shot in the dark though. Not too familiar with them.
 
I have seen pics of the spiders but haven't seen any in my tank (that doesn't mean there aren't any). I would like to get more info on them but I haven't been able to use the search button for the last six months since it always says the server is busy. Is this typical of the destruction the spiders leave? It looks like I'm going to have to start up my quarantine tank again.:mad:
 
mine are new and look like that 6 day's old. they have brown algae on them will they ever open. their suppose to be blue i raised them higher in the tank to see if that helps. other's i baught did open any tricks?
 
If they look exactly like mine do at the very beginning of the thread I doubt they will ever open. Blue zoos however do not like alot of light. Place them at the very bottom of the tank (even in a little shade) and see if that works.
 
The starfish that you described is called an Asterina star. I have known some people who have lost corals to them and other people have a fair number of Asterinas and their corals do fine.

Because the damage is localized, I would consider that there may be a coralivore in your tank. You know that you have Asterina starfish so that seems a likely candidate. It could also be sundial snails or a rock crab. Rock Crabs can be VERY secretive and destructive. I would focus your efforts on finding the bad guy because it seems like a predator is doing this.

Best Wishes,
Barry Katz
 
I've seen blue hermits in my 120 and 54 go after zoos at night, I don't think it's their preferred food, probably cleaning the rock and nipping on the zoos as they graze. I'm doing a 24Pod with just zoos and shrooms right now and have patches of frags that are behaving the same way. I hate to say it but, I would stop the dipping and just wait it out. I've learned in this hobby that sometimes you just have to leave well enough alone and let nature either heal or dispose of them.

I set up a 2000 gallon for my friend's hotel last year in FLA with a softie tank and really large (8-15 inch) zoo colonies that were wild caught, no nudies or spiders (knock on wood) and one of the plates started pinching in the center, it got to about 2.5 to 3 inches around before they finally died off. We checked everything from ammonia to nitrate to iodine and found nothing wrong, sometimes it's just stress.

Monitor and wait, hopefully everything works out for ya.

good luck
 
I have some red zoas... This JUST happened to mine.. some heads kinda turned inside out, and one looked like it swallowed a fish its 'body' was so expanded, but closed off at the top. This happened right after i added 'coral up' So maybe it is calcium/kalk
 
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