Zoas disappearing?

[BNS77]

I have several different Zoas in my 120 mixed reef, I have noticed that some of them have just kind of "melted" away while the others in my tank seem to be striving. Can someone shed some light on this? All my levels are normal. PH 8.13, Calcium-440. Please help me prevent this in the future.

 

[fihsboy]

Aeolid Nudibranchs.......or High magnesium levels can do the worse. Do the skirts go first? or do they just melt into jelly and blow right off?

 

[BNS77]

they look like they close up as if they were touched by something, then they never open back up and slowing melt away.

 

[BNS77]

Also, I've never seen any nudibranchs.

 

[MadOTC]

Could be the amount of light they are receiving. I had a few in my tank that wer closing up and looked like they were going to die completely. A few weeks after i relocated the to part of the tank with more light and flow they opened back up and are recovering.

 

[CrazyZoa]

They are pi$$ed that they live in Concord...just kidding.

 

[jdhuyvetter]

I had a Goldflake angel that only went after the skirts of red zoas. It took me about a month to figure out why I was losing some but all the others were fine. She kept picking at the edges and they would slowly close up and die.

So, got any finicky fish?

 

[BNS77]

No finicky fish! 2 clowns, yellow tang, powder brown tang and a few blue/green chromis. Also, the ones that have "melted" away are at the bottom with 8x54 T5's.

 

[Dwyer]

I've been having the same problem with my orange zoos. I used to have a very large colony. I moved my tank and ever since I have noticed them disappearing one by one.

 

[Neogenocide]

I've melted them with too much light, I has one melt mysteriously for 40+ polyps down to one. I managed to save it and it's back up to 8 polyps now. I recently had a mini tube worm\mini duster growing on the bottom of the frag, it seemed to make them mad and they were slowly melting away. I killed the worm\duster and they look healthier than they have in quite a while.

I've also done freshwater dips combined with quarantine to keep the pods from picking at the dying tissue. It seemed to slow the disappearance of polyps, and managed to save the one frag. Luck, most likely, but it seemed to work.

Scott