Zoas not opening

[Jeremy257]

I've got a mixed reef tank and about 4 days ago now I have a small colony of Zoas that stopped opening up. They are located on a rock that sits on the sandbed with two other Zoa colonies located nearby on the same rock that are not experiencing the same anomaly.

The only recent change made was I moved a colony of Wall Hammer from nearby higher up to the sandbed near the zoa colony but closer to the colonies that are still opening. The hammers could not have been providing much (if any) shading.

Are there any thoughts as to why a colony of zoas would just stop opening?

Water:
Temp: 79
Salinity: 1.026
dKH: 8 (salifert)
Calcium: 440 (Nyos)
Nitrate: 2 ppm (Nyos)
PO4: 0.00 (Hanna)

 

[wetpets9]

I cant help you but i have colonies that for some reason just dont open for awhile then just as suddenly they will start opening again.

 

[undbulsu]

I've had a similar problem. Zoas were my first corals

I've had a similar problem. Zoas were my first corals

Once acclimated to the tank they would open for a month or so and even begin spreading. Then they would just ball up. No signs of any pests and nowhere near another coral.

Read somewhere that Vitamin C was good for Zoas. Don't want to start a huge discussion on it's merits, but I began dosing Vitamarin C and they started to open up again and are doing great. Maybe my tank was too clean and needed the extra carbon source?

 

[Jeremy257]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll just wait it out.

 

[SkyReef]

Hi, Jeremy:

I had a problem where my rock-covering zoas were starting to close up for good. Turns out, that I was not feeding them or feeding them correctly.

After a bit of research on feeding corals, I started spot-feeding them every day with liquid foods, having small particle size: (1) Oyster-Feast; and (2) Rodi-Feast. It worked beautifully, and my zoas are going strong now.

Check out my post yesterday, with a picture of the recuperated zoas, by clicking on this link: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2573835

Good luck!

 

[Jeremy257]

Thanks SkyReef. I currently broadcast feed my tank every other day with Reef Chili and AcroPower. I'll take a look at adding in some additional nutrients specific for Zoas and spot feed them.