Zoos closing and dissolving???

Here is another observation of mine that makes me go huh? I try to keep the water in my 55 as nearly perfect as possible. I have a refugium loaded with chaeto, sump with a decent skimmer,sqwd on return,I test weekly,15 gallon water change every 2 weeks with RO water and I feed my zoas zooplankton every 2 days. I have 250 watt 14k halides. I dont get that great of growth. A couple colonies do good but for the most part its pretty slow. Now the wierd part. My girl friend also has a 29 at her house. Its got alot of live rock,a seaclone that doesnt do much,and 110 watts of PCs.Jebos to be exact. Shes always had a pretty big problem with red algae on her rocks and sand and glass. She never does water changes and she tops off with tap water. Weve never done any testing to her water other than salinity. Every Zoa frag Ive given her does excellent in that tank. Double my growth. Are the high nutrients that cause her algae blooms feeding her zoas? It sure makes me think so and I just wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

Our nitrates are always 20 no matter what we do and we've lost a couple colonies, so i don't think dirty water is a plus. No pests that we can find, now my african blue hornets are withering... Only 3 left
 
Anybody who has zooanthids should also have a UV sterilizer. Zoos are very succeptible to bacteria infections and a UV sterilizer will help control the bacteria in the water. I have seen on multiple occasions the "shriking zoos" problem solved with a UV sterilzer. GET ONE, trust me.
 
A solution that worked in my case

A solution that worked in my case

My Zoos had been closed up for a couple months despite 5min RO dips. Parameters perfect, albeit a 10ppm for Nitrate. I like to feed. So anyway I started dosing a reef vitamin C supplement, but didn't notice too much change (a few more opened).

It wasn't until I dipped them in Furan 2. I should have done it sooner, when they started melting. But I hadn't realized the extent of loss until I had looked at a couple of old photos. I lost a lot of time on stuff that hadn't worked. But the next day after the Furan most of them were open again.

I'm wondering if the enemy is a bacteria specific to the zoos we don't know about. I'm half tempted to try to culture it. If it's a fungus that would be interesting too, but I think the Furan product is more anti-bacterial than anti-fungal in nature.

If it is genuinely bacterial, then it would make sense, seeing as how it got worse after I started carbon dosing. I have since stopped, and hope that whatever bacteria it might have been doesn't rear it's ugly head again!
 
Zoos closing and dissolving???

Only time I had this happen was after a significant temperature spike. Lost a nice colony of toxic lava PEs to melting. Temp went from 78 to 84 over 48 hours. We had a freak heat wave and the tank was small, 40 gal, and in the garage.
 
I have a steady temp and still get zoa pox ugh random ! I just started selling off the. Healthy ones smh just blows like one day healthy next some zoa box on a new zoa happend after a frag swap I took one home and did not know and after that I could not stop it. Massive furan dips.
 
I lost one colony last week to this fungus and now I am suspect of other colonies starting to look infected. Can you tell me how long to dip them and if this fungus will spread to corals that are not zoas. Is a quarantine tank necessary or can I dip and return to main tank?
Any help will be appreciated.

If there is one thing in this hobby I have learned since getting into the hobby back in 2002, you better be QTing everything that you put in your tank or you will eventually regret it! While many problems can be solved given all the info we have today, I cant help but think about what my Grandmother used to always say..."A ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure".

Yeah its a pain in the butt to be sure, yeah we are all short on space or at least most are, yeah we want that little jewel in our tank asap looking spiffy. But stop and think about how much money you have invested in your tank in corals, rock and some cases sand. Are you willing to play russian roulette and risk it all? To me a QT tank is a very small price to pay for a extra meassure of insurance. Killing off my QT tank and loosing a coral frag is a lot easier and cheaper than killing off a display that has several thousand dollars worth of collector grade coral! I QT everything other than dry sand/rock! I dip every coral I put in my tanks!

My QT tank consist of a 10 gallon Aqueon tank, Heater, Aquaclear filter and a Kessil A-80 Tuna Blue. Thats about a 200 buck investment. Easy to set up and tear down repeatedly. Its great for QTing small fish, Clams of Corals. 200 bucks seems a bit steep, but look at a nice display tank full of collector grade corals, add up how much you would have to spend to replace everything in your tank, then ask yourself if 200 bucks is too much to spend to prevent a disaster and loose a tank!!! A QT tank is the best investment I have ever made in this hobby bar none!
 
Possible treatment or cure

Possible treatment or cure

I'm sorry that I didn't take a pre treatment picture but this was a last ditch effort. I had a nice colony of Zoa's that closed up and hadn't opened for 4-6 weeks. White fungus was around the base of the polyps at numerous sites. I read on this forum that survival was limited at this point so I decided to try an anti- fungal medication since there was little to lose. I used API's Fungus Cure (Victora Green plus Acriflavin) mixed at 2x the concentration recommended for fish. I placed the Zoa colony in a small bucket with the medication and a tiny pump for 30 minutes. I then rinsed the colony in clean tank water and returned the colony to the tank. Literally, with 48 hours, about 80% of the polyps re-opened and have been open for the 6 weeks since the treatment. There has been no return of the fungus. This is only a single case and not a "study", but if you have a Zoa colony that is "on the ropes" give it a try. Thank you.
 
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