White dots on a frag & another frag closed - help/advice appreciated.

[xCry0x]

First off is what appears to be these white dots on a frag:

I recently made about 5 multi-polyp frag of these zoas and two are on the other side of the tank from the rest and this morning were mostly closed with these white dots all over them.

Not sure if it is some sort of parasite? I pulled them out and the dots seem to be part of the polyp flesh. I have a lot of asterina starfish that I have been actively removing from the tank - not sure if those are bite marks? I have had the parent colony in my tank for about 3 years and this is the first time I have seen anything like this.

Thoughts?

Second is a frag that isn't opening up:

I have had zoa's react poorly to tank before and die - but I am on somewhat of a streak with no zoa issues I have about 15 different frags right now all growing out fine.

This is a frag of fairy tale zoas and it was completely fine for about a week after adding it to tank, it was actually the first frag of the group I bought to open up.. which I was stoked about given their price tag per polyp.

Now it is ****ed and closed and I am worried it is dead/dying/will not recover.

I had moved it into more directly light in preparation to begin moving the frag into my rock work where I would eventually attach it. As soon as I moved it from the edge of my tank into the center of the tank (still on sand bed) I noticed the zoas were not opening as full - after 2 days they were not open at all and I did a reef dip to make sure there wasn't any type of parasite and then moved them back to where they were previously and happy -- 2 days later they still look like the top picture.

All my other zoas, except obviously that top frag picture, are open and happy.

Any thoughts on what people have done? My experience is when they start closing up like this for days at a time the tissue starts rotting and asterina start finishing them off. Normally I would suck it up and move on but this is a fairly pricey frag of a zoa I have wanted for a long time so kind of frustrated it started off fine then has seemingly taken a nose dive =/

Thanks!

 

[xCry0x]

Of course I look at the first picture and then I see the f'ing asterina star on the frag.. so I am going to guess those a-holes are causing the bite marks, like I expected.

Still would love feedback on the 2nd one.

 

[cbrennan4]

looks like your first zoa might have zoa pox. Furan 2 works well for treating it. You can find some good threads on here that will provide you with info on how to treat it.

I know a number of people who have had the fairy tales melt on them recently. Seems to be one of those morphs that are tricky to keep alive.

 

[xCry0x]

zoa pox def checks out, thanks for tip on that.

Yea the fairy tale melting is weird.

Were the people you know local? Wondering if the recent heat wave could have had anything to do with it.

My tank definitely reaches a mid-late afternoon temp about 1* higher than normal.

Usually is in the 78-82* range noticed today it is sitting at 83* which is my danger zone for when I start looking to throw bottles of ice in the tank =P Annoying because ambient temp in room is low-mid 70s, tank likes to retain heat.

 

[xCry0x]

Furan 2 ordered.

Going to sit here and cry while these fairy tale zoa die =(

Hate buying expensive corals - too much stress if they don't thrive.

 

[cbrennan4]

Ya, I know of 3 local guys that had it melt. Some are pretty experienced with zoas too.

I'd also invest in a chiller. In our area it gets so hot and it will make a big difference in the health of some of your corals. I just replaced my old and inefficient chiller and it made a big difference for me.

 

[brewman1987]

Zoa pox my dragon eyes had that too. I used furan 2 dip and medicated them and also removed a couple polyps that were beyond salvageable with a scalpel. On a positive note they are very healthy now and growing like weeds since then.

 

[xCry0x]

Ya, I know of 3 local guys that had it melt. Some are pretty experienced with zoas too.

I'd also invest in a chiller. In our area it gets so hot and it will make a big difference in the health of some of your corals. I just replaced my old and inefficient chiller and it made a big difference for me.

Honestly I had ran my tank for about 4 years without even having a thermometer in it and corals all grew great.

Everything was completely fine - then I started neglecting things, parameters went bad, SPS started dying.

Been re-investing heavily over the past few months - replaced all my fish, bought a bunch of new corals and bought a digital thermometer (lol).

I was completely shocked to see the temperature peaking 84* because my house thermostat is never set above 75*.

Reading up on Pox it looks like people have seen a correlation between it popping up in conjunction with temp swings/changes in the tank.

I just did a water change the day before - I didn't check salinity since I got it from the store I always go to but wondering if it was off, just checked now and salinity on refractometer is ~22 instead of~25 where I usually keep it. So drop in salinity and temp swinging this past week from 78-84* probably is what is ****ing everything off.

Had my BBQ thermometer on my desk next to the tank yesterday night and it was reading 81-82* on both probes so guessing the spot where my desk/tank is just stays warmer than the rest of the apartment - never knew.

I froze some water bottles today to keep temp in check and bought a small 4" fan that will be here tomorrow that I can use, should be able to just evap cool tank and keep temp in check since it is not a large tank and I have a large 5g ato reservoir.

 

[xCry0x]

Zoa pox my dragon eyes had that too. I used furan 2 dip and medicated them and also removed a couple polyps that were beyond salvageable with a scalpel. On a positive note they are very healthy now and growing like weeds since then.

Yea odd enough it seems to only be on those zoas.. I had 2 frags in a completely opposite corner of tank than the rest that I saw it on first. Now it is on my 3rd frag as well as the parent colony on the complete opposite side of the tank.

Not on any other frags.. knock very hard on wood.

 

[650-IS350]

http://blog.aquanerd.com/2010/10/using-furan-2-to-cure-zoapox.html

 

[xCry0x]

Well. I mixed up 5g of new salt w/ my leftover red sea coral pro salt -- haven't been making my own water for a while since my wife declared it is wasteful due to the drought

Going to use that to do small changes throughout the next 2 days and bring the salinity back up - not to mention I trust the trace mineral content in coral pro so if nothing else will help boost anything that might be lacking.

I also tossed the two frags that were bad last night - pulled out new one this morning and used a scraper from my frag kit to knock off the white dots.

Dunno if cause and effect there but the corals are opening up better post dot removal.

Medication is coming tomorrow so will probably start dipping other frags as needed and see what happens.

Also keeping temp stabilized between 80-81* via ice bottles. Will see what happens, assuming this has to be a stress related thing - the last corals I added were a few weeks ago and were from a reputable vendor, not to mention none of them have pox. The dragon eyes are the oldest zoa in my tank and have never had issues before and it seems to be systematically affecting only them for whatever reason.

 

[650-IS350]

once you have a colony infected, most likely your others are, just not showing symptoms. I have one colony on the left most side of the tank get hit bad with pox ( Japanese deep waters ) back in the day, then in the next week, colony all the way to the right side of tank became infected just as bad.

Ended up using a 5 gal bucket systemically dipping ALL Z's and P's.

 

[xCry0x]

Yea - will see.

Almost all my zoas are on frag plugs besides the parent colony of the dragon eyes so dosing them all would not be awful -- not fun by any stretch of the imagination but would not involve removing rockwork.

On another note, one of the fairy tale polyps is opening a little. Think the temperature swings over the past week is what is/was causing problems. Was peaking at over 100* outside all week and tank was heating up above average during the day. Will need to keep better eye on it going forward - first time I have experienced it.

 

[xCry0x]

Comme onn zoa! Keep getting better! lol..

 

[xCry0x]

To give an update.

Furan-2 came today - however the zoas that were looking bad have already seemed to recover in large part on their own. Had 2 of my 3 remaining dragon eye colonies closed up and rather poxy but after 2 days of keeping the temperature between 80-81* they are all open again and there are not many polyps that still have any signs up pox.

My Sunny D frag got some pox on one of the 6 polyps - treating that with furan-2 since no reason to risk it.

My rasta frag has been ****ed/closed for past few days, I actually had moved one of the first infected frags next to it before I realized what the issue was and shortly after the rastas went from always open to mostly closed. Not sure if direct cause and effect correlation there - no visible pox on rastas but doing a treatment anyway.

Just got home from work and almost my entire fairy tale frag is open again as well after almost a week of being closed.

So note to self - temperature fluctuation bad. Go figure