Zoa problems

jlmawp

New member
I posted about this a while back but I'm going to have a go at it again because I'm just stumped. Need some help/advice.

http://imgur.com/a/8hSP4

As you can see, one of my zoa colonies is not doing too well. In the second picture, you can see what it looked like a couple weeks back, just below the acro. Nice and healthy/happy. About a week ago, polyps started condensing and turning green for reasons I can't explain. They stay like this day and night, and won't open back up once they've shrunk.

This has happened to this colony 3 times now. Every time, it bounces back for a few months, starts doing really well, and then completely crashes again. This happened once with the colony of orange you see in the 3rd pic, but it has yet to happen again, and was less severe.

All other zoas and corals in the tank are doing very well. Even my SPS is starting to take off in such a small tank (9 gallon). I've been generally pretty proud of my tank lately, and this is always just so disheartening...mainly not knowing what I'm dealing with.

The problem colony doesn't have any predators on them. I spot check multiple times a day/night to try to catch whatever it is in the act, but i never see anything, and there appears to be zero chomping going on. I HAVE seen some small branching hydroids starting to grow amongst them, but nothing crazy. I manually plucked any and all of them I saw. I gently blow detritus off the rocks/colonies a couple times a week to prevent algae and other issues from grabbing hold.


Params are great:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
Phosphate: <.25
Calc: 420ppm
pH: 8.2
Salinity: 1.025

Stock:

1 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Blue-legged hermit
1 Red-legged hermit
1 Pom-Pom crab
1 Porcelain crab
4 Astrea Snails

I never see anyone bother the corals, besides the cleaner shrimp getting a little poke-happy as they tend to do sometimes, but even then it's usually the duncan or the torch he's bothering.

I'm getting to my wit's end about what is causing this to happen, and happen so suddenly every time. Is it possibly bacterial? I can't see any issues with the flesh of the colony, and nothing has changed about the setup since it was healthy. Just normal water changes and glass cleanings. Nothing was added, and params reliably hover right around what they are currently.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated. I'm thinking of taking out the whole colony and getting another one that will actually be successful, and maybe a little more colorful. It was my first coral, though, and I'd love to see it thrive.
 
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