Zoos 3 years in tank, now have infection??

impur

impur

New member
I have a decent sized frag of bam bam oranges. I've had these for 3+ years, they were my first zoas and i grew them from 3 polyps to about 30. I have fragged them a couple times as well for trades. Recently, a couple polyps closed up, turned yellow, and melted away. So i removed the colony and using a razor blade removed the other 2 polyps i could see that were turning yellow. I then dipped it in a FW w/ TMPCC dip for about 7 min. They opened fine the next day and i did not see any declining polyps until yesterday, there are about 5 turning yellow right now. I've had this problem before, about 2.5 years ago to another type of zoa and it completely melted away. I could not save it.

That said, has anyone ever beat this when it starts? Anybody know what causes it or what it actually is?

You can see 2 of the polyps closed on the left, and 2 at the bottom. These will be completely gone when i get home tonight.

000_0037.jpg
 
All the rest of my zoos are fine this is only occuring in this colony. All zoos get a FW w/ iodine or TMPCC for 7-10 min prior to going into the tank.

Params

temp 80.1
pH 8.3
SG 35ppt
alk 8.3dKH
calcium 460ppm
ammonia 0ppm
nitrates 0ppm
nitrites 0ppm
 
i had that just happen a few week ago. i had a colony of safecracker which i grew from one polyp and now have over hundreds of them and half die because one day it started to close up and turned brownish yellow and they just melted away. so i what i did was fresh water dip and put it where there is alot of current to blow them around and now it seem to grow back slowly and now most of the zoos are opening up again. i also been using a turkey blaster to clean them everytime i feed the tank.. it could be case by the web looking like worms. when they get big enough they irratate the zoos and they stay close for a long time and they just start to die out. hope your zoos will be ok.
 
impur,
I'm not sure if this is the solution, but take a real close look at the colony. I just had to entomb a real nasty hydroid with super glue that was doing this to a large polyp of Raspberry limeaids.

Hydroids are viscious little buggers that sometimes look like innocent algae or sometimes not even seen.

The worst of them all (imo) is this one below:
Hydroid.jpg
 
those are the worms i am talking about. i just try to pick them off with pliers but now i will try the super glue idea thanks reefjunkie
 
Thanks for the tips guys. I do not have those hydroids currently, it took me about a year, but i finally eradicated them from my tank last Feb.

The colony currently gets a lot of flow. I imagine i could get it more direct flow. I have about 35X turnover (about 2700gph) in my tank currently, but I plan to add an MJmod this weekend giving me about 45X turnover.

I really hope i can stop this from happening this time. Its very odd.

Tonight i'm going to do another FW dip and cut away the dying polyps. I guess i should also try and frag some polyps out of the middle of the colony so i have something to save.
 
I must have jinxed myself.
When I was looking at my EE colony last night, I noticed a small patch that were closed. Sure enough, there was one of those nasty hydroids in it. I quickly glued it back to hell.

Just check one more time or even try glueing around the base of the polyp. Those Hydroids can be so small that they're practically invisible.
 
If it had one in there, wouldn't other polyps around there close as well? Its just 1 or 2 polyps right next to or in the middle of 10 that are fine. Look at that bottom closed polyp, there is an open one doing fine touching it.

And that still wouldn't explain the polyps turning yellow.
 
It's hard to say. I have had zoas that were getting irritated to hell and they were right next to healthy ones. It was the way the hydroid was positioned and the current in the immediate location.

Try taking the rock out and use an old toothbrush to sloftly scrub between those polyps.
 
Well another 8 or so polyps bit it last night. Its progressing pretty fast now. I have a small frag of dragon eye zoos that looks like 1 of the polyps has this same infection. The polyp is closed and look clear, i can see thru the flesh and see the colored center and skirt. I am 100% certain it is not hydroids on that frag. Its in the middle of sand, the closes frag is 8" away. And the zoos are glued to a snail shell. I'm going to throw away both these small colonies. Its just too much to risk if this is contageous with all my other zoos.
 
impur: if anything like this starts happening in my tank.. I'll take as much chunk as possible and get them away from the infected ones...

sometimes, I don't really understand what happens with zoas and I kinda just accepted the fact that I cannot keep everything.. I just try my best to keep them happy and thriving...

good luck and hope they recuperate from this..

Marvin
 
Thanks Marvin. Its unfortunate, i hate not being able to save something, and its even worse not knowing the cause.


Miles
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8850087#post8850087 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by impur
Thanks Marvin. Its unfortunate, i hate not being able to save something, and its even worse not knowing the cause.


Miles
Click to expand...

yup.. I hear ya..

Marvin
 
I'm afraid the worst is not over yet. I had to remove another frag yesterday, it had about 6 polyps closed and looking poorly. I removed it and have it in a baggie floating in the sump. I'll be doing some surgery on it tonight and another dip as well as applying some lugols to the area i cut out. I sure hope i can save this frag. You can barely see the closed polyps on the right side. These have not turned yellow like previously. Instead they closed and just sort of melt away. The pods do the rest.

102_0028.jpg
 
this is really strange.this happened to 2 of my polyps when i first got them,but about a week later one died and the other came back.since then all of them have been fine.
 
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