triplehippos
New member
Up until a couple weeks ago, my tank (300 gal DD) was happily plugging along. Sure, it has had it's fair share of issues, but with consistent (every 2 weeks) water changes, it seemed I could keep everyone happy. I have primarily a softie tank, mushrooms, zoas, bubble coral, frog spawn... Maybe my zoas have never flourished quite the way I want, but it has never been a huge concern until they started melting. I can't even tell you what caused the melting, levels were fine, however I did go into the previous water change knowing about half the water I had mixed up had had a TDS reading or 1 or 2. I am usually religious about changing the filter media, but I was quite confident that it wouldn't do that much damage. Anyways. I did two water changes of 70 gallons about a week apart and things started to look a lot better.
Then my Zoas started disappearing.
Not melting, just gone. I thought at first it was some mysterious critter of the night getting them, and I did night checks on the tank trying to find some obvious critter to rip out with a vengeance and pay for his sins. I didn't see anyone (although I did find a bristle worm and my dotyback took care of that). One day, I pulled a couple of plugs out that had begun to look sparse for a dip in an attempt to get 'mystery critter' off. At this point I was desperate. My husband keeps threatening to do a 'fish only' tank- mind you this is the guy who brought home a poisonous toad fish to put in our refug, only to have it ink our entire tank whenever he tried to feed it. In the toad fishes defense, I don't like having frozen fish shoved in my face either, but it was quite a mess. One of us researches stuff, and one of us doesn't. Not to point fingers or anything...
Anyways, so I was dipping a plug, decided to glue it somewhere else. This plug only had one remaining zoa on it, but the zoa was looking pretty solid. I glued the plug down, and went about finishing the rest of the plugs I had. When I went and looked at the Solid Zoa, the zoa was gone and the plug was empty. WHAT THE :eek2:
I have begun over feeding the tank (seaweed clips always full, feeding several small meals thru the day, etc.). I know this is the best option for the tank, and if I didn't have dogs, horses, a life, etc. I would continue doing this. And on top of that, this morning, my ONE day in weeks to sleep in, when I got up at 9:30AM (our lights turn on at 8) I saw that someone was not happy about the idea of brunch on Sunday's. I even saw a couple zoas sinking to the bottom of the tank, having recently fallen out of some ones mouth, no doubt. :headwalls:
I have ordered additional seaweed 'slow feeders' by Innovative Marine (have one, works great, the blue thing) but I would really like just to get the problem out of the tank, or at least identify it.
The Suspects:
3 Hippotangs (Believe it or not, they coexist almost happily!)
2 Yellow Tangs
1 Orange Shoulder Tang
1 Tomini Tang
1 Sailfin Tang
1 Majestic Foxface (TERRIFIED of everything, I don't think he is the problem)
1 Algae Blenny
1 Blue Spotted Jawfish
1 Flame Hawk
1 Dwarf Flame Angel (Who has never caused any trouble but...??)
1 Melanurus Wrasse
1 Yellow Coris Wrasse
1 Purple Dottyback
3 Blue Damsels
4-5 Blue/Green Chromies
2 Clowns
2 Banggai Cardinals
1 Pajama Cardinal
1 Marine Betta
I think that is everyone...
Any one have experience with dwarf angels suddenly adding zoas to their diet? We have had ours in our tank for about 2 years with no problems.
Then my Zoas started disappearing.
Not melting, just gone. I thought at first it was some mysterious critter of the night getting them, and I did night checks on the tank trying to find some obvious critter to rip out with a vengeance and pay for his sins. I didn't see anyone (although I did find a bristle worm and my dotyback took care of that). One day, I pulled a couple of plugs out that had begun to look sparse for a dip in an attempt to get 'mystery critter' off. At this point I was desperate. My husband keeps threatening to do a 'fish only' tank- mind you this is the guy who brought home a poisonous toad fish to put in our refug, only to have it ink our entire tank whenever he tried to feed it. In the toad fishes defense, I don't like having frozen fish shoved in my face either, but it was quite a mess. One of us researches stuff, and one of us doesn't. Not to point fingers or anything...
Anyways, so I was dipping a plug, decided to glue it somewhere else. This plug only had one remaining zoa on it, but the zoa was looking pretty solid. I glued the plug down, and went about finishing the rest of the plugs I had. When I went and looked at the Solid Zoa, the zoa was gone and the plug was empty. WHAT THE :eek2:
I have begun over feeding the tank (seaweed clips always full, feeding several small meals thru the day, etc.). I know this is the best option for the tank, and if I didn't have dogs, horses, a life, etc. I would continue doing this. And on top of that, this morning, my ONE day in weeks to sleep in, when I got up at 9:30AM (our lights turn on at 8) I saw that someone was not happy about the idea of brunch on Sunday's. I even saw a couple zoas sinking to the bottom of the tank, having recently fallen out of some ones mouth, no doubt. :headwalls:
I have ordered additional seaweed 'slow feeders' by Innovative Marine (have one, works great, the blue thing) but I would really like just to get the problem out of the tank, or at least identify it.
The Suspects:
3 Hippotangs (Believe it or not, they coexist almost happily!)
2 Yellow Tangs
1 Orange Shoulder Tang
1 Tomini Tang
1 Sailfin Tang
1 Majestic Foxface (TERRIFIED of everything, I don't think he is the problem)
1 Algae Blenny
1 Blue Spotted Jawfish
1 Flame Hawk
1 Dwarf Flame Angel (Who has never caused any trouble but...??)
1 Melanurus Wrasse
1 Yellow Coris Wrasse
1 Purple Dottyback
3 Blue Damsels
4-5 Blue/Green Chromies
2 Clowns
2 Banggai Cardinals
1 Pajama Cardinal
1 Marine Betta
I think that is everyone...
Any one have experience with dwarf angels suddenly adding zoas to their diet? We have had ours in our tank for about 2 years with no problems.
