Zoanthid Mortality, A discussion

[Tasmanian]

I recently started experiencing the "zoo melt" as well. I've tried Muchos dip (Thanks for all of your info and great threads always Mucho) in case it was nudis...no nudis. They just .....melt.

I also have seen that they seem to get covered in cyano even though there isn't an outbreak throughout the tank of cyano. When I tried to blow it off witha turkey baster- no luck. So I tried with a maxijet 1200--it still didn't come off and the colony contiues to melt. I tried to remove the colony for a dip, but it has grown across 3-4 rocks and the connecting polyps are (apparently not melting!) holding on for dear life. I don't want to rip it off and further stress the only good polyps left. What do you think about treating the tank for cyano? Maybe if I kill this stuff the polyps can come back easier. Has anyone tried this already?

 

[kass03]

Tasmanian sounds like the mysterious melting disease were talking about.
I don't think it's cyno on them because you can't seem to get it off. It's some kind of dark film on them that looks like algae.
It's the same problem my melting zoa's had but only a few colonies got it here and there.
I saved a few of them by putting them in the shade on the bottom of the tank. Nothing else seemed to work.
I also scraped off the real bad looking polyps from the colony.

kass

 

[BrianPlankis]

PS. On another note, my eagle eye zoas are slowly melting away. They were irritated for a long time by a sand burrowing crab spitting on them, I finally realized this was happening, but it was too late. I've done a zoa dip, but they continue to decline with 1/3 to 1/2 of them dead. Only sign they are sick is not opening up and some black slime on the body of the zoas.

I moved my eagle eye zoas to a place away from the sand bed and in total about 1/3 of the small colony was lost. They are now showing new growth and opening up again

I also replaced the filters on my RO/DI unit which was exhausted and not pouring 70-100TDS water into the tank seems to have perked things up as well.

Brian

 

[AJ69]

Well I just joined the"club" lost 2 colonies;a pink bubble gum and a green mean.Both were close to each other,did the dip no positive results.:mad2: Now I have the EE and a nice burgundy colony melting also.:mad2: I'm so f%^ frustrated.BTW the colonies were like 4x4(size)

 

[rarejul]

I have had problems with a yellow colony in the past. I havent been able to find anything wrong with it. it gets better grows then dies off again. today it is gone. it was high up in my nano and had great water flow. it got stressed due to a knock over. within 2 days I was missing most of the colony. They seem to dissapear overnight. I think flow really made the difference.

my 2cts
Shauna

 

[zephyros]

hiya,

i'm very new in this hobby (tank coming to 5 mnths old) and most
of my corals are zoos. I had a red frag slightly smaller than
palm size that melts away in abt 2 mnths time. This frag
is fr Fiji (I have Indonesia/Philipines zoos as well). Now,
another green/yellow Fiji zoo frag seems to be suffering from
this melting disease as well. Good sign is that the frag
is growing new polyps as the same time. I'm going to try
FW dip with Lugol's sol.

BTW, what is BI as mentioned in the OP?

cheers

 

[eastcoastzigzag]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6227715#post6227715 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zephyros
hiya,

i'm very new in this hobby (tank coming to 5 mnths old) and most
of my corals are zoos. I had a red frag slightly smaller than
palm size that melts away in abt 2 mnths time. This frag
is fr Fiji (I have Indonesia/Philipines zoos as well). Now,
another green/yellow Fiji zoo frag seems to be suffering from
this melting disease as well. Good sign is that the frag
is growing new polyps as the same time. I'm going to try
FW dip with Lugol's sol.

BTW, what is BI as mentioned in the OP?

cheers

------post up the info on ur tank, water pram's, lighting, tank mates, a pic if possible ( we like tank shots reguardless:rollface: )

 

[bevis28]

has anyone had ALL their zoos close up at once. i am going thru that right now. all have been down now for about 3 days. i have not a clue why they are doing this. all other corals in the tank are fine. i just cant understand why this is happening. water parameters are in spec and i am in the process of raising the alk from 9.6 to 12.0 . i wonder if the drop in the alk in the past 60 days has anything to do with it ? my calc is 500+ so i am trying to get my alk back in line with my calc. it tested 11.6 60 days ago and 9.6 DKH 2 days ago. that is why im trying to raise it now. anyone else have ALL of their zoo's shut down at once ? im talking about 12 to 15 colonies.

 

[tekknoschtev]

How quickly are your parameters changing? If they are changing to quickly that may exp;ain it. But then again, if all of the other corals are fine... I dont know about that.

 

[bevis28]

they were closed up before i realized that my alk had dropped 2 dkh over the pase 60 days. i dont think that the parameters are the culprit. i think that i have nudi's but i have never seen one. i looked at a zomm in of a macro shot that i took and i see some bugs on 1 of the colonies. i can see 2 antenna and they are about 1/4" long. i think that they are nudi's. trying to figure out how to raise the PH of RO/DI water right now so i can do a dip of all mt colonies.

 

[BrianPlankis]

Before I begin, I'm not looking to turn this into a salt discussion, but I wanted to share my experience.

I started off my tank on Kent salt and everything was looking great, but I Kent salt prices were really going up in my area...$65 for a 200gal bucket. So I decided to switch to Crystal Seas BioAssay formula. Everything went fine the first month as I switched over, but eventually I noticed a few of my zoa colonies stopped opening up. I don't know if it was the salt or not, but only 4 of my 23 kinds of zoas went into decline. All at the same time.

After two months of the new salt the 4 zoas were looking terrible. They had obviously shrunk and my favorite, what I call green meanies , had closed completely for 1 month.

I finally abandoned the new salt and I've been doing many WCs to get back to Kent. After 5 weeks, I just noticed my green meanies had opened up 6 polyps. I'll try to get a picture tonight. But here is what they looked like BEFORE the salt switch.

Hopefully I'll have an "after" shot in the next couple of days.

Brian

 

[n00b mariner]

bought my first frag of zoo`s and they are all tightly shut. I acclimatized them over about 2 hrs. How long shud i give em to sttle down before i start worrying?

 

[wet reefer]

Anyone using vitamins, trace elements or any other additives that have shown benefit? I think that would be a good discussion here or maybe another thread?

 

[knowse]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6306538#post6306538 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by n00b mariner
bought my first frag of zoo`s and they are all tightly shut. I acclimatized them over about 2 hrs. How long shud i give em to sttle down before i start worrying?

Your new zoas could take up to several weeks to settle in.

 

[MUCHO REEF]

If your zoos take several weeks to fully open, you have an issue in your tank. They should never take that long to open unless you have a parameter that if off, Hypo or Hyper salinity, temp issue, a predator, fish that's nipping at them, light shock, very poor circulation, inadequate lighting. I always recommend actinics only on the first day they are introduced to a new system. It will speed up the time it takes for them to fully expand. Numerous local reefer have told me they're zoos have never opened so fast as they do with actinic acclimation on the first day.

Wet Reefer, I use Reef Plus on a weekly bases, and yes, it does make a difference.

Mucho

 

[budjr8000]

i have a colony of zoos with maybe 45polyps on it. they had been flourishing but now i noticed about 7 on the side that are kind of disinegrating. i decided to pul them off. i am unsure whatelse to do. what does it mean to dip it and how do you do that? i want to save them since they are very pretty.

 

[budjr8000]

where can i find lugol's iodine and is there any other dipping method? would just dipping them in FW work or do i need the chemicals?

 

[jerrymlr1]

I have had some zoas waste away before but I had other colonies of the same zoa so I was never TOO concerned. The other same colonies are still doing good. However I have some red PE's that are taking a turn for the worse. I just started reading this thread and got interested in it. Here's a pic. It sucks because these are kinda my favorites. I have seen plenty of RPE's but none of the same brilliant red. Bummed.

 

[boyohboy2]

man I am experiencing this zoos wasting away big time. More than 1/2 of my zoos are doing it right now and I have no idea what's going on. At least 2-3 colonies of them are most likely beyond recoverable state. I've just inspected the zoos rocks that I can take out, closely to see if there's any nudi or what not. Couldn't see anything unusual yet.

Coincidentally I've recently bought a clove polyps colony and it was opening very nicely for maybe 2-3 weeks. Then all of a sudden it clossed up for few days and then melted away very quickly. Could the clove polyps dying be affecting the zoos? but then I think the zoos started closing up before I got the clove... so maybe the clove polyp dying was also a victim of whatever that's affecting the zoos?

It's really frastrating looking at the zoos wasting away.....

 

[Mattw2190]

Has anyone ever had some sort of brownish algae kill their zoanthids? Right now I have a piece with 15 polyps and 2 of them are covered with brown algae. The 2 that are covered can't open because its like a blanket over them. Has anyone else had problems like this?