zoa's not opening

[steveo32]

ok i bought 2 diffferent frags of zoa's. one i boguht form a fellow reefer and the frist sday they were in the tank they opened up. and now only a few are open. the other set i bought from a lfs and they haven't opend since i put them in the tank. which was tues. my prama's are ok but the nitrate s are a little high 20 right now so im working on that but all my other colonies are open and fine. what could be wrong ?

 

[Reef Junkie]

Humm, well it could be any number of problems, but we'll try to figure it out one problem at a time.

First, please list your parameters.
Size
Filtration
Temp (Including fluctuations)
Salinty
Ph
Alk
Cal
Phosphates?
Nitrites?
How old is the tank?
What are you using for water circulation?

Don't be overwhelmed with all the questions, just take your time and answer as best you can. ( for instnce, if you don't have the test kit you can't answer)

By listing the answers to these questions, you might be able to figure out the problem pretty quickly and remove any obvious suspects.

 

[steveo32]

it's a 125 gal tank w/ 100 gal sump w/ a iwaki 70 pump. my nitrates are 20 i test for trites not sure on alk and cal is 350 i don't test phosphates either not sure that i should the tank was runnig for over a year them i broke it down and set it up at my house so all the rock and sand are the same just diff water my salinity is now 0.26 and i use io which i want to change to oceanic temp is between 78-80 and its been set up at my house since december and other circulation is three other ph's until i get my seio's (yeah!!)

 

[Reef Junkie]

Nice setup!

Unfortunately, alk effects so many different aspects of your aquarium. If your alk is low, you can have ph swings which can kill just about anything. So get yourself an alk testkit. Salifert makes a decent one that isn't too expensive, $15-20.
Oh, and what do you use to maintain your calcium and alk currently?

Also, what's your salinity?

 

[steveo32]

0.26

 

[Reef Junkie]

So, 1.026 is your salinty.
Do you replenish your alk and calcium?
I'm only trying to help you.
If you want, we can take this to PM.

 

[steveo32]

not a prob i use to use bionic then i ran out a figured not to dose because i don't have any sps. what do you think i should do ?

 

[steveo32]

i know the mushrooms use the cal and my lps but my levels have been stable. and thing that i don't get is that all my other coloines are fine it's just the two new ones that i introduced
i'll see if I can get a pic for you.

 

[Reef Junkie]

Even if you didn't have any animals that would require high calcium to deposit a skeleton, you would still need to keep your buffer in check.
So, you should check your alk and maybe use super buffer dkh to bring it back up to where it needs to be, but slowly and carefully.

 

[steveo32]

Ok so i just testyed for alk/kh/dkh and my results are kh value in dkh is 10.2 and the alk in meg/l is 3.66 I used a salifert kh/alk profi test carbonate hardiness it says. No if I am reading this correctly that means that my alk is high becuase it saying that natural sea water is 2.9 and if my alk is high than my cal would be low correct ?

 

[twon8]

no, your alk is fine, that is a good reading, do you have any other circulation besides the iwaki?

 

[Kinetic]

could be the zoos weren't that healthy to begin with?

 

[twon8]

you do say your nitrates are high, and while the stuff in your tank already may be doing fine, they are used to elevated levels of nitrate, the new stuff may not be. not saying that is the answer, just that it might be.

 

[smy168]

maybe water flow like twon said, i find my zoos are more robust when the flow is higher.

 

[steveo32]

well i have some good flow. I have three other ph's in there and the fish get caught in a nice little drift so i think it's good.

> No3 I think might be doing it cause the zoa's were all out in the tank at the lfs. but I was thinking maybe the lighting ? I have pc's and the lfs had 20k 400watt mh's so maybe that is contributing ?

>but if it's the No3 what can I use to bring them down quickly >? and also how will i know these are dead ? that one colony form the fellow reefer is actually coming around and opening so im ok with that its jsut the others are not at all.

 

[steveo32]

Well the ones I got form the fellow reefer finally all opened up so there doing well. Unfortunatley the other colony did not survive they wethered away.

 

[omni2226]

I know this is a few day old thread but just wanted to say this:

The colony you got from the LFS could have looked fine, but were hanging on by a thread as it were and the final move/shock was the last straw. Or it was just their time. Kinda like with fish, some times you do every thing right and for no reason the fish goes belly up.

Just chalk it up to "stuff happens"