Zoa colony dying a horrible death

[joenels]

So I have had these extra large pink zoas/palys since they were around 5 of them on a plug about a year ago and the colony was recently the size of my fist.they were always open and extremely happy...about the size of a quarter each.Anyhow about two weeks ago I came home and they are still extended but the heads are all closed up and they are all wilted like dead flowers.some of them partially open the heads everyday but I have now noticed most of them that are open are puking brown stuff...and a large majority are actually blowing in half and losing their heads.I have never seen anything like it...its like they ingested something that blew them in half from the inside.The weird thing is there is a very happy colony of goochsters right next to them,green mushrooms and a large colony of tubbs blues below them,and various other colonies of palys and zoas all over the 75g that are happy,healthy and growing rapidly.Did I poison this colony somehow?Thats the only thing I can think of...anybody ever had this happen?

 

[joenels]

 

[TwistedEnvy]

It looks like there is a parasite taking hold to my inexperienced eye. I would take them out and QT them.

 

[joenels]

unfortunately its on a rock the size of my head with 5 other corals on there...

 

[geoxman]

<style>.wysiwyg { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 5px 10px 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 10pt verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; BACKGROUND: #f5f5ff; COLOR: #000000; PADDING-TOP: 0px } .wysiwyg A:link { COLOR: #22229c } .wysiwyg_alink { COLOR: #22229c } .wysiwyg A:visited { COLOR: #22229c } .wysiwyg_avisited { COLOR: #22229c } .wysiwyg A:hover { COLOR: #ff4400 } .wysiwyg A:active { COLOR: #ff4400 } .wysiwyg_ahover { COLOR: #ff4400 } P { MARGIN: 0px } .inlineimg { VERTICAL-ALIGN: middle } </style>you have a few star fish on them and it appears that a few of the stems are lacerated, usually from spiders. I would do as above recommended and if you cant get it out I would chisel it out. After it is out I would FW/tincture dip them. good luck

 

[joenels]

got most of them out in three chunks.dipped them for 7-8 minutes in rodi water then added some peroxide for 1-2 minutes.killed a few asterinas but saw no spiders.the rock they were on is fiji and has a multitude of hiding places if it is indeed spiders...

 

[pisces4u]

I'd agree with predators/parasites. The blue asterinas like the one on them in the pic can develop a taste for zoa's.

Try checking the colony several hours after lights-out and look very closely for nudi's and spiders.

 

[dalston]

I had the same experience a few months back, turned out to be amphipods. Do you have any polyp guard dogs?
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1626749&highlight=guard+dog

 

[SIR PATRICK]

I have never seen polyps go limp like the ones you have pictured....

I do see an asterina star in there. It is a possibility.

I also see the lacerations- not a good sighn. Somthing had to have done that. I would take the advice and watch for spiders and keep a close eye on the asterinas.

 

[WhoDey64]

My largest zoa colony recently started to exhibit the same problems (8"x4"), I extracted it from the tank, gave it a strong dip and pulled off 40 spiders. Dipped it again 2 days later and they had hatched a new round of spiders, at least 50 more were present, the colony was culled for the sake of the others... They go from non existent to plague proportions very very quickly. I dipped all of my other colonies but did not find any spiders at the time. Looked at the tank last night and noticed a laceration on 2 other colonies, with microscopic spider legs sticking out of the hole.... Pulling all zoas today for qt but do not expect them to survive the treatment.

They only thing that kills them is a dip in a strong solution of Revive, and that only kills the ones not buried up in a zoa stalk.

I hope for your sake its not zoa spiders, but be warned if it is, they are nasty.

 

[joenels]

wonder why it is so colony specific...I have had stars crawling all over my tubbs blue colony in the evening when they close up which is maybe 5 inches below this one and I could not find any spiders on the colony of pinks when I dipped it...didnt use magnifying glass but I looked it over pretty good.If it is spiders they are decimating it...I hate to toss the whole colony but if it means saving everything else...