zoanthids disappearing

[bigdaddytanner]

I have been watching almost all of my zoanthids slowly disappear in my tank. All the while, every piece of sps, mushrooms, frogspawn, clams, anemone, torch coral, etc. are all flourishing more than ever. Has anyone ever experienced such a thing?

 

[Pallobi]

i have heard of people having bad luck with zoa's "melting" away while other stuff seems to do great... i myself keep sps and zoa... in my 5 months of keeping them since i started my tank, my sps has grown and my zoa's, for the most part have down well... however i too noticed a few of my smaller colonies seemed to also "melt" away or slowly disappear... im not really sure why this happened as my parameters have always been within good limits... but i have had some 2 to 4 point swings over a couple of weeks with my alkalinity, though i cant be positive about this being the culprit... most of mine did fine however, and all my sps frags (15 total) are still growing and doing well even with the alk swings... maybe with my info and a few others, we can help u...

 

[Ritten]

You may want to read the stickies in the zoanthid forumn and look for zoanthid eating nudibranches and other zoanthid pests.

 

[James404]

perhaps you got some zoanthid eating nudibranches? I have had them and they can be very tricky to see since they absorb the color of the zoas they eat and blend right in. Check your zoas at night or shoot them with a turkey baster during the day to make them close up.

 

[bigdaddytanner]

I have tried scoping things out in the middle of the night to see if anything was eating them and haven't found any culprits as of yet. It seems certain zoa's (nuclear greens, and some big purple ones) are reproducing like crazy. Other than those two species, I am watching my other colonies slowly ''melt away''.

 

[xdannyxrocksx]

yes i sure had a problem just like that. you might have like said above, zoa eating nudis. I had a combination of the nudis and a pair of sundial snails. No good! what i would do is tip a couple of your zoas in whatever product you prefer, i use Tropic Marin's "Pro-Coral Cure", and see if they do better i would dip them in this for 15 minutes have a bucket of tank water to rinse them in and place back in your tank.

If u do have nudis you will be able to see them in the bucket where you dipped them witht he coral cure solution.

 

[xdannyxrocksx]

I have tried scoping things out in the middle of the night to see if anything was eating them and haven't found any culprits as of yet. It seems certain zoa's (nuclear greens, and some big purple ones) are reproducing like crazy. Other than those two species, I am watching my other colonies slowly ''melt away''.

I would dip the ones you seem to be loosing if you see any munchers or not.