zoas not opening

M

mazon56

New member
hey guys im new to the forum. its been helping me already. im having some trouble with 2 of my zoa colonies. i put them 9 days ago and they wont open ive tryed different spots in the tank and nothing. they both opened fully for the 1st 2 days and havent opened since. anyone know why they wont open.

90 gallon
ni,amm all 0
nitrate-20-30
pH-8.2
calcium-420
alk-11
 
Temp is at 77 constanstly my light are 6 54watt t5 I have to powerheads one is 800 gph and the other is 1400 gph
 
Are they wild colonies or zoas that have a reputation for being robust in aquariums? I would estimate wild colonies from a LFS to have about a 50% success rate. One way or another, the best bet is to leave them alone and stop moving them around.
 
one is a frag of a much larger colony at the store and the other one was purchased off of a guy selling which was very healthy.
 
thanks alot man that was really helpful. im gonna try a reef dip n see if that helps. how can you know if you have stray voltage and how do you fix that? thank again mucho
 
I wouldn't go dipping just yet. Tell us about the colony. Like Ron said, was it wild caught or captive breed/aqua cultured?

Did you make any changes to your tank on the day the stopped expanding?

Did you inquire of the previous tank conditions, parameters, lighting type, watts, K value and scheme?

Do you have reef safe fish? Please list them.

Did you light acclimate them?

Did you qurantine or dip them before you placed them in your system?

What is your salinity?

How are you checking it?

Do you own a volt meter?

Does anything else show any signs of retraction in your tank?

Polyps will react to stress and you have severely stressed them with moving them.

Why did you settle on 77 degrees?

When was your last water change? If more than 2 weeks ago, prepare to do a 20% water change tomorrow if you can. Aerate the make up water for 24 hours. Lets do a TKO tomorrow. I'll tell you what that is then.

Are the polyps still intact? By that I mean, are there any physical signs of polyp decline such as flaking, pinching, polyp bending or any physical signs of degredation at all?

Mucho Reef
 
MUCHO REEF said:
Did you light acclimate them?
Click to expand...

I'm curious what you do. I take zoas frequently from lower light (150 PAR) conditions, frag them, then throw them into my extremely high light (8" deep, all corals at about 4" under 250W Radiums with Lumenarc's, so probably 400-500 PAR average) and I have about a 95% success rate.

I find acans to be extremely sensitive to changes in light, and for some chalices to have color changes. Named, hardy zoas I tend to find extremely stable.
 
I have a question for you, and I'm not being smart mouth or mean or anything. Just an honest question. Do you think it is wise or recommended to grab a frag, stress it, remove it, stress it, frag it, stres it, glue it to a plug or frag rock, stress it, then triple the PAR within minutes by placing it 4 inches under 250 watts Radium with high end Lumenarc reflectors with a 95 % success rate? Even though you have only loss 5 % of them, I would personally never do that. I would at least place them back where they were then slowly move them to your tray.

What I mean by light acclimation is this, for the first day or 2, I'll only run my actinics with new arrivals, then gradually add daylights. There are a lot of people who simply open the bag and drop them in the tank. Every new arrival is different. If I had polyps sent by mail via 2 day shipping when I paid for overnight shipping with a 24 hour heat pack, I'm not going to treat them the same as I did with something I picked up at the LFS 5 minutes away from home. Why? They would first need to be temp acclimated slowly with tank water. If I purchased some polyps from a friend 5 minutes away who cultured these polyps under two 3 foot T5 bulbs in a 90 gallon tank, I'm not going to place them 4 inches under my dule 250 watt HQI MH's. Why? They would first need to be light acclimated, if not, they could possibly expel their zooxanthellae and bleach out. Every new arrival isn't the same as the last and many reefers are treating them all the same. I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying. These are the topics we seldom if ever discuss in this forum anymore. Though these polyps are hardy and highly adaptive, they are not bullet proof and this is one of the many reasons so many people are losing new arrivals all over the internet.


Maybe I'm overly cautious, maybe I'm an extremly A-retentive reefer. Maybe I just like to error on this side of caution. I meant no harm, was just explaining it from the heart is all my friend.


Mucho Reef
 
WOW.LOL. thats alot thanks alot mucho. my temp is at 77 cuz thats the lowest i could get it n i dont want to buy a chiller. too much money. i have 6 54watt t5 ati bulbs. the tank they were in had 2 54watt t5 and the other under 2 250 watt halide and 1 400 watt halide. my salinity is at 1.023 my nitri-0, nitra-20-30, amm-0, pH-8.2, calcium-420, alk-10.
i have a naso tang, yellow tang, desjardini tang, harlequin tusk, foxface, bluethroat trigger, goby, maroon clown, and a snowflake eel. i have never seen any pick at anything at all. my pulsating xenias arent doing well either but i know there hit or miss. my star polyps are doing great fully open and growing so are my leathers same with my brain and anemone all doing great. yes the polyps are still intact they like peek open a little bit. i did a water change about 3 weeks ago and already had water mixing to do one tomorrow. no i dont have a voltage meter. i dont quarentine or dip before adding should i be dipping all my corals before adding, before or after acclimation. and no i dont light acclimate. only started the reef about a month ago the tanks been established for over a year now and doing good with about 120 lbs of live rock.
and whats the tko?
 
I frag too often for that to be practical. I'd never get to run my lights, and I won't clutter my display tank with frags. In other words, I'll take the loss over the clutter and the inability to make frags as frequently as I want.

Also, is it possible that corals that are thrashed around a little bit more are tougher? I'm not particularly obsessive about stability, even though it helps that I have an extremely large system. I can get away with a lot since I have ~500 gallons of salt water.
 
@OP

a) Everything should be dipped and scrubbed before going in.
b) That's a whole lot of nitrates... way high, especially if you're using a cheap test kit with a high margin of error
c) Acclimate, then dip in tank water + whatever you want to dip in then rinse with tank water, then add to tank
d) 3 weeks without a water change is a long time for a reef tank
e) I believe the ocean is 1.024-1.026 sg, not 1.023
f) The harlequin, or the eel or the trigger could be nipping at the zoas keeping them from opening.

That said, the fact that they're opening a bit means that they could open the rest of the way and be fine. Completely closed for weeks would mean probably not.
 
In my experience, it's too late to dip them now. What you want to prevent is pests from coming into your system. Not to ask the obvious question, but are there any nudis on them?

I wouldn't move them to another spot in the tank. They'll get used to where they are now and if you move them, you're asking for them not to open for another 2-3 weeks since they're already unhappy. They might not be able to survive that long closed up.
 
i dont know what nudis are im a newb sorry. ive heard of them but dont know what they look like or what to look for
 
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