Zoo's wont open?

[SkiFletch]

Hey guys, looking for some advice on nursing some zoo's back to health. Long story short they were on the business end of a rock collapse immediately followed by a cyano bloom in which they got covered while closed. The cyano is on the ropes and the zoos no longer covered, but I cang get the little buggers to open back up. Of the 50 or so polyps, only 2 are full open again, with about 10 others n the verge of opening and the rest are closed shut. I currently have them placed closest to my lights about 6 inches under the water line.

Some tank details:
Lighting are 2x96watt PCs over a 3 foot tank. Filtration is a sump with culerpa refugium, seclone 100 skimmer, and of course a bunch of LR. Other inhabitants are 2 clowns, palythoas, yellow leather, xenia, rics, unided orange acro of some type, and an open brain coral (all doing fantastic). Cleaners are red/blue hermits, cerith, mexican turbo, nassarius, and astrea snails along with an emerald crab and a few plain bristle worms.

Water stats:
Temp - 80
sg - 1.026
ammonia, nitrite, nitrate - 0
phosphate - 0
calc - 430
alk - 10

The tank is new (2.5 months old) and no additives other than carbon (replaced monthly) and phosphate binder (changed weekly). Graspin at straws here to figure out what I can do better or do to help them out. Also, when should I write-off certain polyps as deas and not-saveable. They've been closed for 2-3 weeks now I think. And if any are in fact goners, should I remove them or let nature do its thing?

Thanks for your help,
Fletch

 

[LFS_worker]

sometimes mine dont open and they need a cleaning ... take a turkey baster and lightly blast them with water to remove any residue. Hope this helps! sorry to hear about the avalanche.

Brian

 

[Tingy99]

FWIW I would put the zoa's at the same depth they were before the collapse.

The one time I had problem with my Zoa's opening up I took a real close look and found a sundial snail. If your not familiar with them they look like this and eat zoa's...

Pic from http://melevsreef.com/id/sundial.jpg

 

[josepha]

zoos

zoos

I am having a similar problem, I have 250 metal halides, 160 vho's and my lps, xenia, everything looks great. But I have three colony colors of zoos two open up fine and the third batch won't open in similar fashion, 2 of the 20 are open, three showing like they want to open, the rest closed. I can get gonipora, carnation, and sps to look great, but my yellow polyp zoos, that most people want to get rid of, I can't get to open or grow at all. I am using B-ionic exclusively. How big are the sundial snails? What is the secret to the zoos? especially the the "easy" yellow polyps?
Thanks

 

[SkiFletch]

I've seen sundial snails before and I'm pretty positive I've never had one in my tank. Great suggestion and thought, but couple that with the fact that my Zoas are doing fantastic and I doubt thats the case

 

[Teraphage]

Your best bet is to just keep debris from settling on them and keep them in a moderate flow area. They'll open up when they're ready, and if for some reason they do die your system should have no problem handling it. I doubt they'd die though...I had a bunch of zoos that I superglued to a small rock float away into a deep dark cave in my rockwork for about 4 months. I could see them closed up in there using a flashlight, but there was no way to reach them. Finally when I got them out I stuck them on my sandbed and after about a month they openned up.

 

[Stephany]

I agree with Teraphage. I've had ones survive being buried under a mushroom before.

Josepha, have you tried spot feeding those yellow ones? Those are real responsive to food.

 

[SkiFletch]

they're amongst a moderate flow higher light area right now. Same place they were before the collapse when they were open. I guess I'll just wait and make sure I spray them with the baster. Thanks guys

 

[josepha]

zoo's

zoo's

I turkey basted my orange/green zoo's and they seem to have promise. My yellow polyp zoos look worse. They are shrinking in size and when they do open the skirts are very short on them compared to when I got them. Could something be eating at them. I don't see any sundial snails could a bristle worm be at them? I have brown, green and pinkish brown wood polyp zoa's that are doing great? Doing bi weekly water changes, all other corals look great I'll try spot feeding them and see if that helps and perhaps I'll try a night watch for some critters. Thanks
Joe A

 

[dalbrecht]

yellow polyps like the occasional feeding. Have you tried a bit of brine or cyclopeeze?