Blow Pops won’t stay open in evening

LMDAVE · Aug 15, 2018

Well these are far from Radions. This is their posted PAR depth levels, and I have two strips side by side. I have about 21" from the lights to my sandbed. So, yeah, I'm figure with these lights to max them out now to try and get the best PAR I can. I didnt invest a lot into this 40gal bow front reef, my next tank will have better lighting. But, I feel this strips have been sufficient. Thats an older full tank shot with lights on.

Revos · Aug 16, 2018

LMDAVE said:
Since i was doing a water change today, I decided to dip this Zoa just to be sure. I did notice this purple blob that’s been on it, I didn’t know if this is just some cooor variation of coralline algae or is this some sort of disease? Any ideas?

I do plan to leave it in this same spot on the sand bed for some more days just to see.

Coralline. I have the same type of coralline and it grows on the zoas until they die. Clean it if you can.

LMDAVE · Aug 16, 2018

Ouch. I knew coralline can grow on zoas, but I didn't think it had to be removed. My sunny D colony has a patch of dark reddish purple coralline grow on it. They remain pretty happy but they havent grown new polyps in a while.

So, whats the best method for removing the coralline? Just from feeling it on the Blow Pops, I would probably have to remove them using an exacto knife or something rigid. I've never fragged a zoa yet and I would think you'd have to be just as cautions with protection just to remove the hard coralline.

LMDAVE · Aug 16, 2018

So, day 2 after changing position, and I lowered my front whites to 50% max today. Looks like the are going into their closing phase around the same time (2:00 PM).
The original spot I have them when I started this post was only 3 inches higher than the sand bed, so I guess it wasn't much of a change. The idea of them being saturated with light made sense, but is there another possible cause anyone can think of? They are open perfect and happy in the morning. Just driving me nuts that they close so early. I have Sunny D's on sand bed very happy, I have fire and ice up high about 12" above sandbed and they are open and happy all day.

DSC reef · Aug 17, 2018

They look healthy so that's a plus. It's a possibility there a deeper water type zoa and they reach there saturation point quicker. I would leave them be for now and let them get used to there spot in tank. Maybe over time they will stay open longer.

LMDAVE · Aug 17, 2018

Well, technically they've been around this depth about 2 months, only this week I moved them just a couple of inches down to the sand bed. If you look at the picture I have of them above, I did scoot them back a little further under that cave from the spot they were in the picture, just to limit light to them more. Also, when I had the zoa out again yesterday to try and remove that coraline algae (which turns out was on the frag plug and not the actually soft tissue) I accidentally detached two polyps cleanly, so I have a frag of 2 poylps off this colony. I went ahead and placed them in an area higher up as a test. So, given they may be aggravated about the detachment yesterday, I'm not sure what to expect. But having the ability to check them at two different locations will tell me more.

IslandLifeReef · Aug 17, 2018

I was having problems with acro's and stn. I also noticed that my zoa's were stretching just like yours. I thought that it was normal for the zoa's. When I asked my LFS about my Acro problem, they asked to see my light schedule. They were running the same light at 2X the level I was. They suggested I was starving my tank of light and to increase the light level. Ever since, my tank has looked a lot better and my Zoa's have stayed close to the rock and grown significantly. I would say that PAR levels in the 20-40 range is way to low for those Zoa's. JMO.

LMDAVE · Aug 17, 2018

Yeah, I was wondering the same also, now that I have these split apart and in two significantly different locations, it'll be able to show me which ones stay open longer. This zoas was my first zoa when I started my tank 6 months ago. I bought it about about 4.5 months ago as one of my first corals. Originally it was up top and curling towards the back of the tank. I move it to a couple of different locations, and eventually put the second light strip in to double my lighting capablity. It shown the best results in the latest location at the bottom, and there was a small period of time that it was staying open somewhat into the moonlight hours of my schedule. It's really a confusing thing to grasp, because the idea of it getting too much light makes complete sense, and seeing I was able to grow my sunny D's from 2 polyps to 9 down at the sand bed with these lights tells me they are capable lights.

They've never look better than what they do towards the bottom of the tank, it's just keeping them open past 2-4 PM. So, this will all come down to experimenting.

SandJ · Aug 17, 2018

Are these white spots on the zoas or just a reflection? If on the zoas it could be zoa pox. It can cause them to close up (though it would be odd to close the same time every day). I have also seen colonies with it that show no effects, you can just see the white spots when they close up.

LMDAVE · Aug 17, 2018

There's a good chance that's just reflection, I took that picture with the flash on, and there was a chandelier to the left making my picture hard to get, so I put the flash on to bring out the coralline part.

SandJ · Aug 17, 2018

LMDAVE said:
There's a good chance that's just reflection, I took that picture with the flash on, and there was a chandelier to the left making my picture hard to get, so I put the flash on to bring out the coralline part.

That is what I figured. My daughter bought a zoa colony and zoa pox wiped out a lot of her zoas. Since then we are super careful and inspect everything. Even healthy looking colonies we have purchased had zoa pox we seen once they were bagged and the polyps closed.

a6walter1 · Aug 17, 2018

What does your light schedule look like? There are 2 components to light, intensity (which has already been discussed here) and duration. I've heard mention that your lights come on at 8 am and start to ramp down at 6? that is a long time. I run my lights from 3pm-9pm White+Blue then 9pm-11pm with just Blue. My corals have always been healthy and happy.

LMDAVE · Aug 17, 2018

Well, given the amount of limited PAR my lights appear to have. I run my schedule as follows. My blues ramp up slowly from 6 am to 8:30 AM, my white begin to ramp up at 8am - 11am, full intensity from 11 to 6, then a ramp down from 6 - 8 PM, my blue then begin a long ramp down period from 8-10 PM.

My wife sends me picture while I'm at work, and usually report at the end of the day. But, just looking at the first result from 9 AM shot, the blow pop zoas in the shade are full open and happy, the frag that is up higher in direct light is not as happy. So, I'm hoping to see better results from the colony further in shade, that will tell me a lot more later today.

LMDAVE · Aug 17, 2018

Well, each day I limited the light to the colony on the bottom, this time actually pushing it back from direct light. And each day they close sooner and sooner. You can see from this picture compared to the one in the previous post above how much it is closed by 2:00 PM. Only conclusion I can get from this is it needs more light instead of less. However, if you look at the frag that was placed up top in direct light (sorry for the bad pictures that were sent to me), the middle picture at 11:30 it was wide open, but the final picture show it closing again also. This colony is well adjusted to the tank at the bottom (2+ months) and limiting the light just caused it to close faster. But, dont know what to make of the frag up top that was in direct light.

a6walter1 · Aug 17, 2018

Good observation, I tend to agree that when zoas "reach" they are trying to get more light. I have the same issue in my frag tank when I put zoas in the corners where there isn't much light. Definitely try moving them up higher. Also, I have noticed that my zoas tend to close up if the flow isn't right (too much or too little), just another aspect you can investigate.

LMDAVE · Aug 17, 2018

Yeah I have a spot about 5 inches higher than the original spot that I’m trying. I didn’t want to go full up. So I’ll see how this goes. Normally I would agree with keeping in one spot for longer than a day to see how it adjusts, but tbe trend was definitely showing less light was closing them faster. Definitely a finicky Zoa, but very beautiful under blue light so hope I find the best spot for it.

gonzo64 · May 8, 2020

any update to this...I have same exact problem with same exact zoas ..same everything..lol.....mine been doing this for months...thanks

gonzo64 · May 11, 2020

muzikalmatt · May 11, 2020

I'm not sure it makes a huge difference, but those look like Gorilla Nipples not Blowpops. I could be wrong though as there are so many morphs of all zoas.

Blowpops (not my pic)

Gorilla Nipples in the back (pic from my tank)

LMDAVE · May 12, 2020

gonzo64 said:
any update to this...I have same exact problem with same exact zoas ..same everything..lol.....mine been doing this for months...thanks

Its been a while since I made that post, and I dont remember the exact resolution, but it was right around the time afterward when I upgraded to better lights (Went from Fluval 2.0 to SB Reef Lights) and I believe the zoas were happier. But a few months later I upgraded to a bigger tank and using AI Prime lights. I moved the Blow Pops over to that tank with my other zoas to create garden. Blowpops and all of them were happy. This was about a year ago (see link below). Sunny Ds are taking over the garden now. But to answer your question, I believe better light is what made the blowpops happy.