Zoas disapearing at a Rapid Rate after fraggin Main Colony

[AwwNuts]

Well let me start by saying that I have not had problems with Zoas until the end of May. I have this large rock in which Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoas were starting to over grow the rock. Naturally my thought was, remove some zoas and place them on plus and rubble i had to offer them to the community.

I took the large rock out and work at removing zoas in a container with tank water. I removed a large chunk off the main rock by snipping a thin layer of the rock surface in which the zoas were attached that way they would continue to be attached to something.

Before re-introducing the main colony back into the tank I gave the rock colony a good rinsing in case i so happened to have killed any zoas in the fraging process. I tried to carefully cut in between the zoas and i believe i avoided killing any polyps.

I placed the main colony back in the DT and the frags in rubble and plugs into a frag tank that I have. The oddest thing occurred 2 days after fraging this rock which has never occurred. A whole colony of Eagle eyes disappeared over night, clean off the rock without leaving any traces that Zoas ever existed on that spot. Nothing was left over to serve as evidence of what occurred. Then after this colony disappeared i had a large frag disc in which i had Bam Bam Zoas, within the course of 2 days they look as if they starting melting away at a very rapid pace. I dipped the coral and it held for another 2 days before disappearing, now this colony wittered away slowly by showing the polyp decreasing in size until their ws nothing left. At this point i got mad as the Bam Bam's are valuable and the colony just disappeared melting away within days. At this point i am freaking out as i have Starscream Zoas, KO's, Hawaiian, Red People Eaters, Green People Eaters, Purple People Eaters, Fire and Ice, Dragons Breath palys and a few others that the wife so praises over. 2 polyps of my starscreams immediately closed up and by the next day the head/skirt starting to disappear as it was super shrinking. Now i'm like i have an emergency and got to take these guys out to try and save them.

After the Bam Bams disappear i immediately added some carbon with the thought that the RDE Zoas had release some sort of chemical or toxin and it was affecting the other zoas. The other zoas began showing signs of something wrong occurring even tho i added carbon.

At this point I am not sure what the hell is happening. All I can think of is it had something to do after i fragged the large coloy of Radioactive Dragon Eye's as before the fragging took place all the Zoas were striving and reproducing rapidly

Oh one thing is after this even I began to look for predators at night and the only thing i found were 4 keyhole limpets which i immediately removed. I don't think these guys were the cause of the issue to magically make things disappear over night and kill zoas at a really fast rate.

Parameters Now that Hot Summer has started.

Temp-81-82 <--It has been running a bit high lately so i may get the chiller running shortly
Ph -8.1
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0
KH-9-10
Calcium- 480
Mag-1700's
Salinity-1.025-1.026
Tank Size-125 gal
Tank has always been running a phosphate reactor with ROWA

Oh on a last note, ever since I started noticing Zoas dying i been doing 20 gal water changes every 4 days thinking that their might be some sort of chemical or toxin in the water as well as running some carbon.


I know i prob won't get a definite answer as each tank is different and theres millions of thing that can be happening but maybe theres something that i have not checked or thought about.

 

[AwwNuts]

Here's a pic of the only predator I been able to find the keyhole limpet. Have stayed up until 3 or 4 am and never found any of these close to zoas. Always close to the bottom of some rock. Only found 4

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

Bump

 

[A. Grandis]

Hummm...

Ok, the limpet you can put back in the system. They are mostly herbivores and will help you out keeping some of the algae in check. I haven't heard of any species of limpets to eat zoas or corals.
The main reason I know they aren't the case is because of their size. They wouldn't be able to ingest and digest many polyps in one night. So no, not the limpets.

There are other organisms that would eat your polyps THAT fast and at the top of the list are angel fishes and/or butterfly fishes. Even if they are in the tank for million years. One day they just decide to go ahead and eat them up. So if you have any angel or butterfly that could be it.
No angels/ butterflies? No other predators?
Well...

Then the only thing left would be bacterial infection and/or GFO.

The fact that you rinsed the polyps could trig the bacterial infection because they are on a live rock. Some bacteria are opportunistic and they can live in the system (on/in rocks) for long time without showing their "dark side". When you fragged the zoas you had open wounds to be healed. The fresh water on live rock doesn't have to, but could help the action of those bacteria, by disturbing them, depending on how much and how you did it. Could be that they just took advantage and infected the open flesh of the zoas' colony. To tell the truth, just the fact the polyps had open wounds could trig bacterial infestation, as we all know.

Once the bacteria is active it reproduces and contaminates other colonies.

These observations come from my own experiences.

The higher temperature only contributed to the infestation and I recommend you to turn on the chiller ASAP and set it at 79°/80.

Please stop adding GAC to the system and other purification methods to remove toxins. That won't help you, if the problem is bacterial infection.
The addition if Lugol's solution to the system in very small portions would help to control the infestation. I normally add 1 ml per day for every 50gallons for 3 days only when bacterial infection happens. Skimmer on al the time...

I'm not a fan of phosphate reactors.
I would think the media could contribute to the case.
Only God knows if that is the case and how much.
Please do a search on phosphate reactors (GFO) and zoas to decide about that.
Would be a good idea to stop the reactor and see what happens.
Maybe there is no bacterial infection at all and the media is the problem (?).

You've got a lot of home work to do.
Please keep in mind that observing your system is the best you can do solve a problem like that!!
Good luck!

Grandis.

 

[AwwNuts]

Thanks for the info. After removing the main zoa colony out of the tank it look like things normalize. I took out the more expensive zoas and immediately re homed them on another tank to ensure their survivability. I left a fee tester frags and so far no signs of irritation or loss of polyp has occured. Meanwhile the main colony in the frag tank has continued to show sign of sickness and loss of polyp. What ever it is, it is still going on with the rock in which the colony is at. When all this was going on my star polyps in my DT where not opening up once so ever. After removing the main zoa colony and doing another water change they began opening and have fully open ever since. For now the main zoa colony will not be returning into the main DT for a good while if ever. No more zoa loss and no stress indication from other corals polyps since removal of rock.

I've done plenty of research in regards to GFO and the only reason I have it is because I do have more larger fish in the system which I have the reactor to help avoid from phosphates elevating to a high number and affecting the mix reef. I'm in the works of setting up my refugium and until then the reactor is doing its part in helping keep the parameters as best in control as possive.

I've gotten the temperature back in check and so far so good.
I had a feeling the limpets weren't causing trouble as nothing had previously occurred while they in habitat ed the system but had them in my caution side just incase.

What ever the problem was, it has then stop since removal of main colony rock. I hope the DT does not continue showing any more signs of sickness and it stays in this positive course it has been sh I wing these last couple of days.

 

[reefwars]

Words of caution from someone who often cuts large rocks and sometimes many many frags at a time. When you slice the rocks down you are opening something that has not been opened or exposed for along time including anything trapped with in, more often than not po4 spikes. Even rinsing the new cuts is not that effective unless it's done very well.when we have larger rocks to cut or have to cut a lot of live rock we do it in small steps, it's bad enough with all the glue and chemical warfare that goes on around fragging without adding unknown possibly harmful things to the tank , smaller tank would make it even worse. Run carbon when fragging larger pieces or making lots of frags.

 

[AwwNuts]

Thanks guys I def learned my lesson on fragging a large quantity. Next time I'll frag in smaller sections over time as I've never had this issue before and if I do ever have to frag alot at once I may just set up a small tank with maybe a tiny bit of iodine to let the open wounds heal. I've added a bit of iodine before into the DT when I flagged a small section off the rock but this time it just didn't cross my mind.