zoas happy...palys not so much

[joenels]

all of my zoas are happy as can be but most(not all)of my palys are either all closed or open up briefly then close up again.lighting is 4x39 t5ho and 1x96w 50/50 PC on a 50 breeder.flow is a koralia 1,regent hob filter with carbon(the big walmart filter) and running a mce600 about 10hrs per day.water changes ten gallons a week and livestock is a single undulatus about 3.5 inches fed lightly.tank is about 3.5 months old.I have some monti cap,birdsnest,duncans,candy cane,acans etc all look extremely happy and have shown a fair amount of growth.I do have flatworms in the tank and am wondering if they could be irritating the palys but would think they would irritate the other corals as well if that were the case.I have a frag of tubs blues ~30 ployps with 5 unknown palys in the middle of the zoas.tubbs are wide open...4 out of the five palys are tightly shut and the fifth isnt so sure he wants to be open either.Everything tests good as far as ph 8.2,amm 0 nitrite 0 nitrate ~0 but alk is down around 6.5-7.I have tried boosting alk a bit with homemade(baking soda mixed with rodi per homemade 2 part instructions)but it seems the same with or without bumping alk and I hate skewing it rather than keeping it a steady low.any ideas?no noticable pox/spiders/nudis or other predators but that doesnt mean they arent there.Have dosed once for flatworms with FWE...didnt get all of them.

 

[joenels]

bump...anyone?

 

[flyyyguy]

nothing jumps out at me as a real problem in concern to your palys

Are you talking palys as in protopalythoa(button polyp ttype), or simply the large zoanthids everyone calls palys??

I do catch something else though......you say you cant seem to bump yoru alk up.

Im going to venture out since you dont mention calcium that you might not be testing calcium or magnesium. Its very likely that you have enough sps and lps in there that your mag and calcium is very very low(and your alk wont raise) because you dotn dose it enough to keep up with demand. I woudl suggest makign sure yoru alk, calcium and magnesium are all in line. This will exponentially increase the growth of your skeletal building corals, as well as make a more hospitable environment for yoru polyps as well.

Once you get the three in line, then you will be dosing them together to maintain parameters similar to NSW.

As well, most likely it took some time to get your water out of balance, and simply dosing a bunch of stuff to get it back on track really isnt the best way to go about it. The best way to do it is to doi a bunch of large water changes. Like 20% a day for 5-7days. Start with a clean slate of ionically balanced water and then get on top of your dosing needs, which you will then maintain daily even if you dont actually dose very much every day. The healthier yoru tank gets the more you will find you need to dose to keep up with yoru growing corals. You wil want your alk a touch higher than the 6.5/7 but not much more. 8-8.5 is a good number IMO

I would also suggest running yoru skimmer 24/7, and feeding your fish more. Thats the best food you can give yoru corals.

hth

 

[joenels]

I actually have so meprotopalys(greenish version of camiethoas)that are doing spectacular.the ones with problems are the larger zoas with longer stalks.I have not been testing calc or mag as I dont have a lot of stonies in there but have added a few recently so might need to check that.I had hoped that weekly 25% changes would be enough to keep up with consumption as they are all small frags not colonies by any stretch.I had only tried dosing the alk mix a few times to see if it would stay up there but it keeps falling back down and the polyps show no improvement either way.I did manage to nuke some beautiful coraline though...bleached out when I bumped it up one night.no effect positive or negative on the corals though.The unhappy ones do seem to perk up a bit right after a water change so I assume I am either reducing something they dont like or adding something they are in short supply of...I assumed it might be the alk.Running the skimmer 24/7 is unfortunately not an option...it is 2 feet from the bed and no matter what I do it is just too noisy to sleep with.I am looking into getting a mce300 for the 50 and moving the mce600 over to a 75 I am setting up sumpless as I think the 300 is quiet enough for nightly use.

 

[SPotter]

when ever i have a zoa or paly that isnt opening or not staying open for long, i move them to an area in the tank that is sheltered from heavy flow and shaded from the light. As far as dosing alk, its really not something you can just do once or twice. One thing I have learned is that if one level wont rise its because there is something wrong with another level. I was having the same problem with my alk and I wasnt testing ca or mag. I tested both of those levels and found that my ca was fine but my mag was extremely low...1000. I started dosing mag and when i finally got there where it needed to be, I started using two part and now my alk is consistantly 9-10, my ca is 420 and mag is 1300-1350.

One last thing, I know people debate about supplement feeding of zoas/palys but I put some reef snow into my tank a few times a week and I have noticed tremendous improvement in coloration and overall look of them.

 

[flyyyguy]

.I did manage to nuke some beautiful coraline though...bleached out when I bumped it up one night.no effect positive or negative on the corals though..

im going to stand on my assessment that your calcium /alk/mag is skewed and you need to get controlof it

a alk spike will not kill coralline. But low alk and the water depleted of any available calcium and mg will

all of your lps with skeletons and coralline are using it along with yoru sps.

Get a handle on it with a complete water change over the course of a week and then daily dosing and yoru system will be much happier and all of yoru corals will grow better

Im by no means saying that this necessarily has anything to do with yoru troubled polyps, but it is a basic need of your tank and should be addressed

GL