Having trouble with Magicians, please help

[vahegan]

Hi!
I am having trouble with keeping Magician palys. I had received a frag with a single polyp a few months ago. Initially, it was doing great, and opening up, and looked very beautiful. After a few days, however, the polyp closed, and has never opened again. It stayed closed for a few weeks, then shrunk up, and eventually disappeared.

I brought a new frag with 3 polyps on it from a different source two days ago. I went and picked it up from someone's tank, and they were nice and opened there. When I placed the plug in my tank, the polyps opened up in 30 minutes and were very nice and beautiful. The next day they closed, however, and stay closed since than, and I am afraid they would die away like last time. I have other zoas and palys in this tank, and never had an issue with any, except for magicians.

My water parameters are as follows: SG: 1.026, KH 8.5, Ca 430, NO3 10, PO4 0 (measured by Hanna HI713, but I am adding about 0.05ppm daily on a doser). No fish at this time, but feeding the corals with reefroids and Fauna Marin coral dust twice a week. The lights are LED. The person I bought them was also using LED.

I have read all the threads on Magician Paly in this forum, and I can see that for some people they just grow like weeds, regardless of placement or flow or anything, while quite a few others had reported issues just like mine: they do not open up, and gradually melt away. Some others reported slow or no growth in years.

I would like to understand what it is that may trigger the growth or death of magicians. Please help.

 

[Supa]

My magicians are closed up at the moment they seemed to get stressed when I went through a Dino/cyano outbreak, the algae/bacteria is gone and they are still closed. All my other zoas minus one bounced back. I would say my magicians are finicky.

 

[vahegan]

Well, they opened up after a couple of days of adjusting, and seem to be doing OK now

 

[Pkunk35]

It’s that phosphate I think. I have the same sort of thing bc I have difficulty keeping phosphate at a level above 0.00. Some of my coral, including some but not all zoanthids (which did include magicians) would develop issues which did include melting. Happy to say that magicians in particular were able to grow back from a nub so don’t give up on em!

On the doser I would watch the phosphate weekly at least to make sure you don’t start overdosing which can lead to excess phosphate, which if you strip too fast, the yoyo effect can really stress coral from my experience.

 

[vahegan]

Yeah, my doser is set up to add in equal amounts hourly, but whatever amount I dose (I went up as high as 0.1-0.2ppm per day but then cut back to about 0.05 as when I dose too much there is algae growth on walls and pipes) , the phosphate reads 0 on HI713 every time I measure. But I was able to stabilize nitrate at around 2.5-3ppm.

 

[Chrisv.]

Have you tried dosing iodine? I find that it makes a huge difference for my Zs&Ps.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Need higher phosphate / nitrate
My magicians have went from 3 polyps to around 8 I keep elevated nitrate and phosphate

 

[Pkunk35]

Yeah, my doser is set up to add in equal amounts hourly, but whatever amount I dose (I went up as high as 0.1-0.2ppm per day but then cut back to about 0.05 as when I dose too much there is algae growth on walls and pipes) , the phosphate reads 0 on HI713 every time I measure. But I was able to stabilize nitrate at around 2.5-3ppm.

Yep I had the same issues using dosers with phos. I now find it easier to dump po4 and test the next day or two then dump etc until I get a reading (in the beginning this took more than a week to register). I also find that if I am dosing phosphate my nitrates go down so now often times I am dosing nitrate along with phos or at least testing to make sure it stays where I want.
I still haven’t stabilized it completely but I can let it cruise for a week now between 1 or two doses of phosphate and feedings.

@Chrisv. I also used to dip zoas in iodine solution whenever they looked bad. Not sure where I heard that from.

Dvgy, your corals look great!

 

[dvgyfresh]

Yep I had the same issues using dosers with phos. I now find it easier to dump po4 and test the next day or two then dump etc until I get a reading (in the beginning this took more than a week to register). I also find that if I am dosing phosphate my nitrates go down so now often times I am dosing nitrate along with phos or at least testing to make sure it stays where I want.
I still haven’t stabilized it completely but I can let it cruise for a week now between 1 or two doses of phosphate and feedings.

@Chrisv. I also used to dip zoas in iodine solution whenever they looked bad. Not sure where I heard that from.

Dvgy, your corals look great!

Thanks man , I really think it’s a nutrient issue because my magicians have taken a beating the urchin carry’s them , constantly knocked on sand , I really need to glue the frag plug somewhere

 

[vahegan]

Yep I had the same issues using dosers with phos. I now find it easier to dump po4 and test the next day or two then dump etc until I get a reading (in the beginning this took more than a week to register). I also find that if I am dosing phosphate my nitrates go down so now often times I am dosing nitrate along with phos or at least testing to make sure it stays where I want.
I still haven’t stabilized it completely but I can let it cruise for a week now between 1 or two doses of phosphate and feedings.

Yeah, I tried that but I don't like to dump the phosphate at once. When I do that, sure it measures exactly what I dose, but the next morning its gone to zero. And yes, nitrate and phosphate go together, approximately in Redfield ratio. And I dose urea and monopotassium phosphate, calculated in Redfield proportion. I thought about increasing the amount of phosphate in the mix, though.
I probably need to get some fish. When I had fish, I was struggling to reduce phosphate, not increase phosphate, LOL. But I have decided this time only to get certain fishes and in certain condition, which are hard to get, at least in my country, and so I am having to dose nitrogen and phosphorus... I am considering to dose amino acids for nitrogen, though.

 

[vahegan]

Have you tried dosing iodine? I find that it makes a huge difference for my Zs&Ps.

Yeah, that's something I am forgetting. I used to drop some iodine in the tank once every few days, but that's something I haven't done for quite a while. I even have the Salifert Iodine test lying somewhere, although I am not sure how reliable that is. Thanks for reminding me!