Zoa haven't opened in a week-help

[Megalonaias]

Hi Everyone,

I have an established colony of zoas and palys in a shallow 20 gallon reef tank. I inherited a tank from a friend who moved too far to take. She built the tank herself about 5 years ago. Recently, most of the palys in the tank have stopped opening. The zoas seem to be fine but the palys on the same piece of live rock are not doing well. (I've included a photo). I have no refugium, but I do weekly 20% water changes and feed brine and mysis shrimp. The palys have been translucent and closing. Some have a white center (I hope this isn't them bleaching!) I haven't changed anything in the tank. Does anyone have any suggestions? Everything else seems fine except the palys!

Mg: 1400ppm
Ca: 400 ppm
pH: 8.0
Temp: 76F
KH: 89.5 ppm

20 galllon shallow reef tank, black clown, clown goby, mandarin goby

 

[organism]

How are you measuring your salinity, and when was the last time you calibrated it? I've seen zoas do that pretty consistently when the salinity's too high...

 

[Megalonaias]

Sorry I forgot to include that earlier. The salinity is 0.0126. I use a little hand held hydrometer with a float. Not the most accurate device I know, but as a biology graduate student... I've learned money doesn't grow on trees. I check salinity once every three days and top of the tank with RO water from our lab once a day.

 

[organism]

Is that the swing-arm kind? Those can sometimes be about as accurate as a taste test, money doesn't grow on trees but you could end up losing 10x in livestock for what it costs for a refractometer if your salinity is off... If there's one thing to absolutely not skimp on in a reef tank it's your salinity testing device.

 

[Megalonaias]

Thanks for the help. Do you have any suggestions on ones that I should buy? Also, I noticed that one of my larger leather corals is touching my scolymia and might be creating some kind of chemical warfare (they are both located directly upstream of the palys). I'm planning on cutting the leather coral back today and doing a water change. I hope this helps.

 

[laugh]

IMO they sometimes do that. I recently bought some new zoas and it took them over two weeks to finally open up. They just opened up one day and were as beautiful as they looked in the greenhouse.

 

[Gravesj1s]

Another option to purchasing a refractometer is a floating glass hydrometer,whitch can be every bit as accurate as a refractometer and cheaper by far.Just reference check it against a known source like a freshly calbrated refractometer from your lfs.

 

[Megalonaias]

Thanks everyone. I'll look into the glass hydrometer. I stopped the chemical warfare that was going on. The scolymia isn't put its guts out anymore and no one is touching. However, the palys are still looking rough. Some even have white centers and other are turning slightly yellow in the middle. They are suppose to have a metallic turquoise center with dark green edges. Are they dying? Any else have any ideas on whats going on? I have a few small brittle stars (the kind that are black and white stripped) living on the same rock. I haven't ever had a problem with them before and neither did my friend. Any chance they are causing problems now?

Thanks for all the help everyone.

 

[Megalonaias]

So one week later and I haven't seen any improvement in the palys. I bought a glass hydrometer from my local fish store and calibrated it against their refractometer. The salinity is staying at a fairly constant 0.0125. My zoas are doing fine still in my tank but the palys just don't want to open. The ones that are opening have bright white centers and their mouths are wide open leaving a small hole in the center. I spied on the tank last night with a red light, lots of copepods but no spiders or nudis that I could see. I have been reading on other forums that I should perform some sort of dip with furan2 or coralRX. The only problem with performing a dip is that I have a tridacnid clam on the rock which would not fare well to being out of the water for any kind of dip. I also read that the zoas might have some sort of zoapox. Does anyone have any thought on this? Is there some sort of full tank treatment I can apply? I really appreciate any help. I don't want to lose all my palys.

 

[MikeandNicole]

Does not look like zoa pox, it looks like brown slime algae on them. What sort of flow are they recieving? I dip with coral RX or revive would help and a light scrubbing to remove the brown stuff off of them. Having the clam on there complicates things as you do not want to dip that.

 

[Megalonaias]

Here are some newer photos. The first picture is the back side of the rock (lower flow and light) and what the colony looked like before they got sick. The second photo is the front of the rock, high flow and light. The last photo is a close up of healthy palys from the same colony but under my sun coral somewhere else in the tank. I don't see any algae on them, just their soft tissue pull around the stalk. You can see the difference in color from the healthy palys and the sick ones. The sick ones are much lighter in the center. The weirdest thing too is that the other zoas on the rock are not affected..... Do you have any suggestion on how to dip/scrub the palys with the clam??? I'm really nervous about pulling the clam out of water at all as it needs to be burped and is quite temperamental.

Thanks!

 

[Megalonaias]

Just ran across this photo of the colony from August 12.... I've almost forgotten what they looked like....... sad

 

[organism]

Wow, those things look like they're getting eaten alive by that algae, to me it looks like they're not getting enough flow...

 

[Megalonaias]

So I changed the flow pattern and I scrubbed off the algae on the palys about a week ago. There was a lot of red slime algae on the outside of the palys. I was able to remove most of it. But the palys still haven't opened. Now the inside of the palys are turning yellow. None of my other colonies on the same rock have been effected. In fact the zoas on the same rock are fine. But the palys which are dispersed throughout the zoas are closed while the zoas are healthy and fine. I did noticed some bristle looking worms on the rock and some large amphipods. Anyone have any suggestions. I think I need to do a dip. Does anyone have any recommendations for dips I could use?

Thanks

 

[laugh]

Revive is a good dip.

 

[jbonez]

what is a good refractometer?

 

[Megalonaias]

So just to update. I did a water change tonight and was hopelessly looking at my dying zoanthids, and there they were.... nudibranchs! So, I pulled the two out that I could see and I'm wondering what to do now. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I have a shallow reef tank with multiple corals and live rock. The rock that has been hit the hardest by the nudibranchs has a tridacnid clam on it. I saw that Organism posted a helpful FWE treatment versus nudis thread. But I was wondering if I should remove the rock and apply the treatment in a bucket? Or should I try to treat the whole tank? I have several pieces of live rock with zoa colonies. Suggestions would be great!

20 gal reef tank, Lord acan, several leather finger corals, several zoa and paly colonies, tridacnid clam, cup coral, duncan coral, favia, black oscillaris, purple flame goby, mandarin, yellow clown goby

 

[deadmeat]

Megalonaias,
Please identify and post pics of the nudis if you get a chance. Also I just wanted to ask if you are specifically talking about the polyps with the bright green center and red skirt? If those are the ones in question, have you done anything in lighting changes? Is the Rock arranged same as she had it? I only ask because in my experience only two things had ever taken that type of polyp from me... T5 lighting directly on them and sundial snails... With my fixture I can only grow those in the shade...

Tom

 

[A. Grandis]

They were covered probably by cyanobacteria, not algae.
They were closed and the cyano took the advantage to grow over them.
I would say predators or bacteria infection to be the problem.

Grandis.

 

[Megalonaias]

Tom, I am talking about the polyps with the green centers and brown skirt. The lighter green Zoas on the same rock seem to be doing fine. I tried my hardest to set the tank up just as she had it. In fact, she helped me set it back up once we got everything to my house. I haven't seen any of the sundial snails, but I will keep an eye out for them. I have some turbo snails and they have reproduced in the tank, so I have a lot of small snails around. I haven't changed the lighting either. I've included a picture of the nudibranchs that I pulled out of the tank below.

Grandis, do you have any recommendations for treatment at this point for cyanobacteria?

Thanks for all the help everyone.

Meg