Zoanthid Mortality, A discussion

[bigfoot610]

I am ahving the same problem i have tried dips scrubbing with a toothbrush and removing it it just comes back i have it on a couple paly's too what is this crap and how do i get rid of it i put straight iodide on them after tonights brushing let them sit for 15 seconds the did a 5 min FW dip and it still comes back again! imabout to put them in qt with neosporin to see if that works im just dumbfounded if you have beaten this crap please pm me! Thanks .............................Luke

 

[boyohboy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6503840#post6503840 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 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.....

some update... I wouldn't say I've solved the problem, whatever it is.... but my zoos look to be getting better. Still not fully open as they were before, but at least half open, rather than completely close.

Here're what I've done:

1) using a bag of activated carbon in the tank
2) did 2 waterchanges (~5G and 10G, out of my 50G+30Gsump)
3) replace the sedimentary filter of my RO/DI unit (TDS reading was 1ppm before and now 0ppm)

So did I actually "fix" the problem or did it just go away? I duno... but hope I'm heading to the right direction with the zoos

 

[heuerfan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6501103#post6501103 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 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.

I feel your pain, had the same bright red pe's also. I had a 100 polyp colony that slowly wasted away until i fragged it and gave to friends with SPS tanks (hi flow/low nutrient) and they seem to be thriving. They gave me back a small frag, did well for short period and they waste away also. I have a LPS/Zoo tank with hight nutrients since i feed the corals and fish alot. These Red pe seem to like cleaner water, but my other zoo colonies are doing very well and growing

Oh how i miss them.........

 

[jay357]

I had a colony of zooz that developed this black slime that would grow overnight. It would drip from polyp to polyp, you could literly see it with long stringy looking webtype stramds pf black. I would dip the coral and scrape off the infected/dying polyps only to see more of the black stuff the next morning. I finally had to cut off about an inch of healthy polyp with the infected portions leaving only a few left on the rock. It has recovered completly from only a few to covered completly now.

Has anyone seen this black slime death stuff?

Jay

 

[jerrymlr1]

I feel your pain, had the same bright red pe's also. I had a 100 polyp colony that slowly wasted away until i fragged it and gave to friends with SPS tanks (hi flow/low nutrient) and they seem to be thriving. They gave me back a small frag, did well for short period and they waste away also. I have a LPS/Zoo tank with hight nutrients since i feed the corals and fish alot. These Red pe seem to like cleaner water, but my other zoo colonies are doing very well and growing

Oh how i miss them.........

That had to hurt. I think these are some of the best out there.

 

[Kookynewky]

I had a colony of orange zoo's that were doing phenominally even speading to other rocks. One day the outer most zoos in the colony were closing up then dropping off the rest of the colony. This happened until the very last zoo followed suit. They were my second coral ever so I ever really know why this happened. I tested with my kit at the time which did not include things like phosphate and calcium. I imagine I may have had a parameter that was off but back then I had no idea of the benefits that an actual reefers test kit held.

 

[21Reefman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6614572#post6614572 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jay357
I had a colony of zooz that developed this black slime that would grow overnight. It would drip from polyp to polyp, you could literly see it with long stringy looking webtype stramds pf black. I would dip the coral and scrape off the infected/dying polyps only to see more of the black stuff the next morning. I finally had to cut off about an inch of healthy polyp with the infected portions leaving only a few left on the rock. It has recovered completly from only a few to covered completly now.

Has anyone seen this black slime death stuff?

Jay

Jay,
yeah, once on some pink/ sandy's. I thought it was a morph color of red cyno algea and used Chemi-Clean red algea treatment. It was too late for the colony yet I have not seen the black stuff since. It was accumulating on the substrate as well at that time.
I attributed this issue to high nutrients and lack of water changes, in my case. Good Luck

 

[surfnvb7]

i'll have to be honest...i havent read through this entire thread since zoanthid mortality can be so trivial depending on the individuality of everyone's tank, and the water chemistry inside.

however. i just observed my first true zoanthid mortality in 2 different types of zoas i've had for years, happen for no apparent reason. when i say my first true mortality, i mean seperate from getting a frag...and them not pulling through after a month. i've had that happen a couple of times.

i just lost all of my "fire & ice" zoas, or known to some as the ones with the orange skirt and light blue center. i had several different small colonies (50polyps or so) in different locations in my tank, and they all dissolved away. i didnt do anything to stop it, like a dip or anything.

just before that, i witnessed these guys on the right almost completely dissolve away, along with a frag i made months ago on the opposite side of the tank.

i lost the entire frag (5 polyps), and went from about 20polyps, to 7 left on the small frag in the picture.

no idea why this happened, made no changes to my tank as far as chemicals or lighting. just dunno...

 

[BrokkenTWolf]

My colony of blues suddenly closed up and then started melting away. I didn't change anything at all about the parameters and nothing - including doing twice the amount of water changes - seemed to help out. I'm mystified by the sudden behavior. The only thing I did was add another colony of zoas and add a colony of acan lords. I'm pretty bummed about it since they seemed to be doing so well and breeding like crazy. Now my reds seem to be on the decline. The only thing that I have to contribute from my experience is that I have reds in different parts of the tank. They all seem to be affected so it's not a localized phenomena. As to what is causing the actual decline it's still a mystery to me.

 

[BrianPlankis]

I wonder if chemical warfare by corals is causing this in tanks. I'm going to run carbon more often in mine and I'm slowly reducing the number of different corals in my tank.

B.

 

[MarvinsReef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6709584#post6709584 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CirolanidHunter
I wonder if chemical warfare by corals is causing this in tanks. I'm going to run carbon more often in mine and I'm slowly reducing the number of different corals in my tank.

B.

that's an interesting thought.. what other corals do you think would have chemical warfare with zoas?? I have blasto's wellsi's and merlettis, Yuma/FL rics, Acan lords and echinatas, and a hammer on my 75g zoa dominated..

do you think any of these are contributing with chemical warfare? so far, my tank seem to be doing okay..

Thanks
Marvin

 

[BrianPlankis]

Marvin,

From what I've read most corals can do some kind of chemical warfare or another. Sinularia and leathers seem to be the most prolific chemical producers. However, there is very little research reports that actually test for chemicals in the water and their effects on other corals. It is one thing to find a nasty chemical inside a coral, it is another to determine if it is causing damage to a coral on the other side of the tank.

Personally, I'm going on the side of caution and reducing the number of different species of corals in my tank. I've lost 4 small colonies of zoas to melting, all other corals have been fine. At one point I had 28 different kinds of zoas in the 75. By April I will be down to around 7 and a couple of "colt" corals will be making their exit as well.

Brian

 

[surfnvb7]

I wonder if chemical warfare by corals is causing this in tanks. I'm going to run carbon more often in mine and I'm slowly reducing the number of different corals in my tank.

thats a darn good question. that really makes you think hard. and want to keep up on the water changes too!! :lol:

i have a feeling it might be the leather type corals, and obviously mushrooms too.

i just added a green leather a month ago.....but haven't noticed it sliming or anything yet. cant imagine any LPS or SPS hurting zoas....usually its the other way around.

 

[jerrymlr1]

I thought I had lost my reds. 4 out of 5 looked like they were toast. One is toast. The 5th was going downhill fast. A week or so ago I took all my zoa frags that were not looking well and dipped them in the furazone that was mentioned on another thread. One of the five started to come back pretty good a few days ago. As I was reading this thread this afternoon I checked the remaining 3. I'll be dogged but the 3 are actually opening up. You can bet I'll be happy if they make a full recovery.

 

[BrianPlankis]

what is furazone, how do you use it and where would you get it? Could you post a link to that other thread?

B.

 

[jerrymlr1]

Right....................................................................here.

 

[wet reefer]

I'd be interested in hearing about how long people have been able to keep a colony of zoas going. I don't consider 1 ,2 or even 3 years a success. How many times have we read on these posts about zoas disappearing. I'm not suggesting that nobody can keep them for forever. I'm sure there are plenty of sucesses out there. But I don't think anybody has a clue as to what is going on in our tanks in regards to this. Those that are sucessfull (5 yrs or more) with a particular colony of zoas have a commen thread. We all need to figure out what it is.

 

[vyger]

The zoo's in my tank I have had for over a year and now all of a sudden they are closing more than they are open. I have had them in various tanks and they have done well until about a month ago. In fact they were closed up solid for almost 3 weeks and then I put them in my 10 gal reef and they opened right up and looked good for about a week now they are closed again. And another colony on a 5x6in rock has also closed and has not open for three days....This is very frustrating, everything else in the tank is fine, so the obvious assumption would be that Zoo's are affected by something that doesn't affect the other corals....whatever that might be????

 

[Steve973]

I had a colony for over a year and a half. I had 20-30 polyps and then one day, half of them were gone. and not mangled, but there was no trace left of the ones that disappeared. It appeared that I had some kind of predator in my tank. Close inspection yielded no clues - no eggs, nudibranchs, or snails around the colony. So now I have 1 polyp of that oringinal beautiful orange colony. I also purchased a colony of cool green skirted zoos. this predator found them and made quick work of them, again leaving no trace of the zoos behind. This weekend I purchased another small frag of about five orange skirted zoos (slightly different than the original type). These were eaten in one night.

I have no idea what could be eating these zoos. I suspected the urchin when I had it, and my emerald crab when i had it. When I donated these to friends and the pet store, it didn't solve my problem. Maybe I have a rogue worm, or something that's very cleverly hidden until very late at night. I'm not sure how i can find out what it is. My tank is primarily SPS, but I love zoanthids and I would like to have a few select colonies!

 

[schristi69]

Use a bottle trap and put some zoas in as bait.