Zoas and water parameters (Mg and Ca specifically)

[gte539f]

I have three small frag colonies: red people eaters, fire and ice, and one polyp of nuclear green palys. Last time I did a water change the fire and ice and nuclear green closed up and remain closed up to this day. That was about 10 days ago. My red people eaters is fine though.

I checked my water parameters, everything was okay except the Mg and Ca levels were low, 1050 and 335 ppm respectively. Does Mg and Ca matter much for zoas? I don't see why 1 would be perfectly fine but the other 2 are affected. I see no physical issues w/the closed up polyps and haven't spotted any pests.

Do I need to raise the Mg and Ca or just wait it out and see if they open?

 

[gte539f]

I just checked the tank w/a flashlight, I see some incredibly small creatures crawling around the nuclear green paly that is closed up. They are so small a picture would be useless, but they are moving around like ants. Any clue what they could be?

I'm supposed to receive some Revive Coral dip tomorrow, would that kill these tiny pests? If they did what would prevent them from returning and continuing to irritate my zoas/paly?

 

[650-IS350]

seen any of these around or in your polyps
http://www.coralpedia.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=384

 

[gte539f]

No I haven't seen any of those. I do have vermitid snails in my tank but none near where I placed the frags. I'm going to do a Revive Coral dip tonight, hopefully that will get rid of the pests and the polyps will open up again...

 

[GreatReefs]

I believe mag alk and calcium are very important. I have elevated alk to help ward off unwanted macro algae problems. And the raised mag seemed to give my zoanthids better colors. Here are my parameters:
Cal-420ppm
Alk-10-13 dkh
Mag-1350-1400ppm

If you're going for these levels I would raise it slowly over the course of a month or atleast a few weeks.

 

[gte539f]

Yeah I ordered a calcium and alkalinity kit from BRS to raise the Ca and Mg levels safely.

Follow up: I gave the frags a Revive Coral Cleaner dip and then returned them to the tank. In the bucket I saw some small brown specs (tiny mystery "bugs") and some spaghetti worms. It makes sense now, the two frags that closed up I had moved to the sand bed and the okay one was on rock. I guess the spaghetti worms were able to get to the ones on the sand and irritate them. Anyway hope that did the trick, now just waiting for the polyps to all open up again

 

[650-IS350]

if your cal and mag are off, then I wouldn't doubt your alk/Dkh would be off as well.

 

[twelvejewelz]

I just checked the tank w/a flashlight, I see some incredibly small creatures crawling around the nuclear green paly that is closed up. They are so small a picture would be useless, but they are moving around like ants. Any clue what they could be?

I'm supposed to receive some Revive Coral dip tomorrow, would that kill these tiny pests? If they did what would prevent them from returning and continuing to irritate my zoas/paly?

these tiny bugs you are seeing are 99% going to be copepods, amphipods,isopods, mysid shrimp and or a combination of all 4. i wouldnt worry about the bugs to much unless they are any of the ones listed on that link that was posted above.Although there are some isopods that eat corals..

 

[gte539f]

Would copepods, amphipods, isopods or mysis irritate zoas and palys? I couldn't identify the tiny bugs that came off since they were so small, did see some shrimp like things that maybe mysis.

Ever since the dip I've moved the frags off the sand bed and they are SLOWLY but surely opening back up...

 

[justnmatt79]

Pods can irritate them, but IME they don't do any sort of damage. They may cause the polyps to close up briefly, but not for any extended period of time.

Unless... You have such a large amount of pods in your system that they are crawling all over the place. I had some pods bugging zoas and palys until I added a sixline, and now I rarely see pods in daylight.

 

[gte539f]

Well the polyps stayed closed for over a week when I moved the frag to the sand bed.

I used to have a six lined wrasse until it decided to go carpet surfing. Guess I could put a net of some sort on top of my tank. Will it really eat these TINY TINY bugs? Not even sure if they are pods.