Mystery Zoa melt, my search for a cure (follow my journey).

[Edgecrusher28]

That's the same recommended dosage as my bottle mentioned.

In that case you're definitely dosing significantly more than me. I have added the trace elements to my balling light system right now. If I don't see any improvement in one week I will test with ICP. Oes doesn't measure trace elements like rubidium though. MS does but is significantly more expensive. You are fine without measuring the low
amount trace elements?

I am only doing ICP-MS test going forward and have been doing so for the last two months.

 

[Tavero]

90 par could be a little low for some species as they appear to be stretching a bit, but if they are closed up I've seen Zoas do the same thing even in high 180ish par; so who knows. It appears these frags are on your sand bed, and you said moderate flow, but can you post of a video of the flow maybe when you dose your Aminos? I am really starting to lean towards faulty flow patterns within some tanks that are leading to these mysterious melt backs, because at this point I have really dialed in my tanks and still have a few hiccups here and there. A common problem alot of us Zoa heads seem to have is some frags are dying while other a few inches away look like a million dollars; there has to be come kind of correlation with that.

I wouldn't completely rule out wrong flow but I moved my gorilla nipples to several different places. They seem to be unhappy with all of them.

Because, like you said, some zoas are dying while others near them looked great, I also had a suspicion of toxins. Maybe not even palytoxin but some growth inhibiter which some zoas are sensitive to. Though @crAphroditie wrote that he has 5 tanks filled with different zoas. I would imagine there were at least several colonies that are doing chemical warefare if this theory was true. Some of my colonies definitely are more unhappy when they touch each other.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Updates on my tank. overall condition is good, 98% of my Zoas are doing good and are fully open. I still feel that I am lacking the color I would prefer but maybe this is just a mental bias i have; I need to see more peoples tanks in person to compare.

12-1-23 Began Kalkwasser dosing.
Reading the variety of benefits with kalk dosing, I began a transition to use Kalkwasser as my sole means to stabilize PH throughout the day (more specifically at night, using basically the ACI method). This has also helped me keep rock solid calcium and alkalinity levels as of now. PH variance is around .03 to .05 fluctuation throughout the whole day. which I feel is pretty darn good.


1-11-24 Installed Hydros X4/X8 controller/monitor to observe more accurately what the tank is doing throughout the day. More importantly I really want to start focusing on setting up proper flow patters and variety in the tank. Still awaiting delivery of my second Gyre pump but got the rest installed and running. After all the tests and methods used in this tank, I do feel that flow or more specifically inadequate flow could be one of the main culprits to the mystery melt; just a hunch though.

 

[Tavero]

Tank update,
Since I've started dosing Tropic marine trace elements with the balling method my zoas seem to have stopped degenerating for the moment. A lot of them are still ticked though.

Today I've got my ICP MS back
Overall there is no real issue.

Iodine is slightly elevated at 114ug/l instead of 70ug/l
Aluminum is slightly elevated with 71ug/l instead of 40ug/l

Fluoride is low, 0.7mg/l instead of 1.3mg/l
Tin is below detection level, should be 1ug/l but it may not be essential.

The only treatment oceamo was recommending is fluoride dosing.
@Edgecrusher28 was it you who said you have started dosing fluoride? Did you see any change in your tank?

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Tank update,
Since I've started dosing Tropic marine trace elements with the balling method my zoas seem to have stopped degenerating for the moment. A lot of them are still ticked though.

Today I've got my ICP MS back
Overall there is no real issue.

Iodine is slightly elevated at 114ug/l instead of 70ug/l
Aluminum is slightly elevated with 71ug/l instead of 40ug/l

Fluoride is low, 0.7mg/l instead of 1.3mg/l
Tin is below detection level, should be 1ug/l but it may not be essential.

The only treatment oceamo was recommending is fluoride dosing.
@Edgecrusher28 was it you who said you have started dosing fluoride? Did you see any change in your tank?

Yes, I am dosing Fluoride on a monthly basis now around 120ml of The Moonshiners Pump version. Over the last few months of MS testing this is one of the elements that I can decern is clearly being consumed/bound and requires correcting frequently along with Boron and Zinc among the other obvious ones. I am not convinced that Fluoride is the golden child of Zoa melt issues, but I feel like there was an overall health/appearance improvement when being added but I think of this as more complementary in nature.

The few frags I had in the main Zoa tank that were getting ugly again have turned around nicely when the Gyre's were added and I was able to fine tune flow throughout the tank. I have also noticed the zoa colonies immediately shortened their stalks and are growing much tighter together which i find to be far more visibly appealing.

 

[Tavero]

Yes, I am dosing Fluoride on a monthly basis now around 120ml of The Moonshiners Pump version. Over the last few months of MS testing this is one of the elements that I can decern is clearly being consumed/bound and requires correcting frequently along with Boron and Zinc among the other obvious ones. I am not convinced that Fluoride is the golden child of Zoa melt issues, but I feel like there was an overall health/appearance improvement when being added but I think of this as more complementary in nature.

The few frags I had in the main Zoa tank that were getting ugly again have turned around nicely when the Gyre's were added and I was able to fine tune flow throughout the tank. I have also noticed the zoa colonies immediately shortened their stalks and are growing much tighter together which i find to be far more visibly appealing.

I think I can finally narrow the reasons for my zoa melting syndrome down to three issues:

1. Salinity swings
2. Phosphate limitation
3. Trace element limitation

While the zoas recover after a few days, when the first two issues are fixed, the third one leads to permanent damage with very long recovery durations well into weeks or months. I will report back after having dosed fluoride for some time.

 

[mig.]

Is your water simply too clean and they’re doing that because they’re hungry? I understand zoas live in darker dirtier water in the wild, and mine seem to like that too which is great, because that’s a good match for my appetite for tank maintenance. In fact. Moving my tank the other day I checked the water and it was a nice ‘freshwater tank green’

 

[Tavero]

Is your water simply too clean and they’re doing that because they’re hungry? I understand zoas live in darker dirtier water in the wild, and mine seem to like that too which is great, because that’s a good match for my appetite for tank maintenance. In fact. Moving my tank the other day I checked the water and it was a nice ‘freshwater tank green’

Do they? Rockpool zoanthids are a completely different species than the ones we keep in our reef tank and nutrient rich water isn't the same as dirty water. Reef zoanthids hate detrius and could get infections if too much of it collects between the polyps. Reefers need to stop repeating the phrase that "zoas like dirty water". They don't.

Yes, if I don't dose phosphates and nitrates daily they will drop below detection limits. I think I mentioned this already. But nutrient limitation is the easiest fixed issue here and the fastest the zoas recover from.
If there is a trace element limitation, (we don't still don't know which element exactly), zoas will melt no matter where the nutrient levels are.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

I think I can finally narrow the reasons for my zoa melting syndrome down to three issues:

1. Salinity swings
2. Phosphate limitation
3. Trace element limitation

While the zoas recover after a few days, when the first two issues are fixed, the third one leads to permanent damage with very long recovery durations well into weeks or months. I will report back after having dosed fluoride for some time.

Yeah I would agree that even mild-ish salinity swing will upset the Zoa's well before any of my LPS/SPS corals. I had a JBJ sensor go bad and a swing in salinity and seen some signs of distress by the zoa's all while the tank was under super close supervision on dosing and other parameters (I guess not close enough though :0).

 

[Tavero]

So far so good.
Ever since I have started dosing fluoride my zoas stopped melting. I also can finally see tentacles again on my Gorilla Nipples frag.

None of these polyps were opening 4 weeks ago.
Basic icp-oes don't test for fluoride adding additional difficulty in figuring out the issue.

Call me crazy but a lot of symptoms seems to correlate with the Tropic marine fluoride explanation (although no other corals have shown them except zoas):

"A too low fluorine concentration shows itself in dull tissue, reduced growth, colourless growth peaks or growth edges in foliaceous growing corals (e.g. Montipora species) and partial light sensitivity. Furthermore, the animals become more susceptible to parasitic infestation. The skeleton softens considerably. At a Florine level under 0,8 mg/Liter (o,26gal) some SPS corals showed slow tissue necrosis from the base."

 

[Edgecrusher28]

So far so good.
Ever since I have started dosing fluoride my zoas stopped melting. I also can finally see tentacles again on my Gorilla Nipples frag.

None of these polyps were opening 4 weeks ago.
Basic icp-oes don't test for fluoride adding additional difficulty in figuring out the issue.

Call me crazy but a lot of symptoms seems to correlate with the Tropic marine fluoride explanation (although no other corals have shown them except zoas):

"A too low fluorine concentration shows itself in dull tissue, reduced growth, colourless growth peaks or growth edges in foliaceous growing corals (e.g. Montipora species) and partial light sensitivity. Furthermore, the animals become more susceptible to parasitic infestation. The skeleton softens considerably. At a Florine level under 0,8 mg/Liter (o,26gal) some SPS corals showed slow tissue necrosis from the base."

Glad to see a turn around for you! I dose the Moonshiners Pump version of this element but I know each month my one time correction doses are around 250ml, so clearly it is being consumed and or bound to something!

 

[Yodaman]

I have to disagree with that. Amphipods were always giving me issues, therefore I had to eradicate them. In all of my tanks they were actively eating healthy zoanthid polyps.
There is no way to misinterpret the symptoms though. If several tentacles are missing in the morning something was eating them. This doesn't happen in our cases.

To touch base on this, I witnessed amphipods (and got on film) tugging on a head in my Zoa colony that has been struggling the last few weeks with no changes made to the system.

How did you deal with the amphipods? I don’t necessarily want them all gone completely, but obviously their population is too large if healthy corals is what’s on their menu.

 

[Tavero]

To touch base on this, I witnessed amphipods (and got on film) tugging on a head in my Zoa colony that has been struggling the last few weeks with no changes made to the system.

How did you deal with the amphipods? I don’t necessarily want them all gone completely, but obviously their population is too large if healthy corals is what’s on their menu.

My fight against amphipods was on three fronts.

First I used an oxygen depleting medication and (accidentally) shut off flow during the night. Next day 80% of all amphipods we're dead. But I can't recommend this procedure to anyone with fish and inverts in their tank.

Second, I used a dense ball of chaeto as a trap inside the display. Once every two weeks I pulled it out and flushed it with fresh water to remove the amphipods inside of it.

Third I introduced a large group of Rockpool shrimp (palaemon elegans) to my tank. They hunt the whole day for small crustations and other prey. While they can't kill adult amphipods, the will happily eat freshly mold juvenile ones and the larvae.

 

[Tavero]

Small update.
Zoas looked sad again for a for a few days, but perked up after I dosed fluoride. While it is nice that we seem to have found the solution for the issue, it is annoying that there is no fluoride hobby test. And only advanced ICP OES are even measuring it. So even figuring out the consumption will be quite difficult. I will start with 0.5 mg/l per month and check regularly.

Still the gorilla nipple frag I posted a month ago, while not melting, still looks sad. I think the damage is already too great for a recovery.

Something completely different: sadly I lost my new blueberry pie zoa frag. It didn't melt though. It literally got lost in my tank after it was ripped from the rock by a snail or crab. Another zoa frag was ripped from the rock too but I found it in the sand. There seem to be a bulldozer going around during night.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Small update.
Zoas looked sad again for a for a few days, but perked up after I dosed fluoride. While it is nice that we seem to have found the solution for the issue, it is annoying that there is no fluoride hobby test. And only advanced ICP OES are even measuring it. So even figuring out the consumption will be quite difficult. I will start with 0.5 mg/l per month and check regularly.

Still the gorilla nipple frag I posted a month ago, while not melting, still looks sad. I think the damage is already too great for a recovery.

Something completely different: sadly I lost my new blueberry pie zoa frag. It didn't melt though. It literally got lost in my tank after it was ripped from the rock by a snail or crab. Another zoa frag was ripped from the rock too but I found it in the sand. There seem to be a bulldozer going around during night.

Curious, do you run Carbon for prolonged periods of time by chance? Overall there was a ton of improvement in the tank with the addition of the Live Rock along with the monthly/daily elemental dosing from Reef Moonshiners. However, I still was running into some issues occasionally with a few Zoa frags that would randomly shrink, or others that would only partially open. I am admittedly guilty of probably over doing carbon by running a few cups worth in the 100 gallon system and leaving it run through the reactor for months on end. I have removed all carbon from each tank and will monitor over the next few weeks.

 

[Tavero]

Curious, do you run Carbon for prolonged periods of time by chance? Overall there was a ton of improvement in the tank with the addition of the Live Rock along with the monthly/daily elemental dosing from Reef Moonshiners. However, I still was running into some issues occasionally with a few Zoa frags that would randomly shrink, or others that would only partially open. I am admittedly guilty of probably over doing carbon by running a few cups worth in the 100 gallon system and leaving it run through the reactor for months on end. I have removed all carbon from each tank and will monitor over the next few weeks.

No Carbon. I tried it out a few years ago but abandoned it pretty fast when it had no immediate effect.

Since I started dosing fluoride no new zoa colony started shrinking/melting, but the ones that have already started to show symptoms before it, don't want to recover, even though they stopped shrinking for now. I found some success by completely fragging a colony. If there is at least one healthy polyp left, it could regrow a colony, but only as long as the tissue is disconnected from the shrinking ones.

I think one of the pieces of the puzzle would be to figure out what the biological effects of fluoride is on zoanthids. Do they actually need it for biological functions, or is it used as some kind of building block in the tissue. Similar to phosphate in human teeth. Or do they need it for the immune system and after it bottoms out once and they get infected it doesn't help that much anymore. That's about it for the display tank.

When it comes to my frag tank, there are still a lot of unhappy and shrinking zoas there. But here the issue is more obvious. I let cheato run wild which bottomed out nutrients several times and overgrew some colonies. Also the light seems to be subpar. I think my led driver is starting to die.

 

[Tavero]

My new ICP oes results.

Not the best ones but I'm only interested in fluorid anyway. Even though I dosed around 1.5 mg/l in the last month, it is only at 1.2 mg/l so there seem to be a significant consumption. Maybe I have to increase it's dosing and the dosing of other trace element further.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

My new ICP oes results.

Not the best ones but I'm only interested in fluorid anyway. Even though I dosed around 1.5 mg/l in the last month, it is only at 1.2 mg/l so there seem to be a significant consumption. Maybe I have to increase it's dosing and the dosing of other trace element further.

Hey, by chance do you measure ORP in your tank?

 

[Tavero]

Hey, by chance do you measure ORP in your tank?

I don't. I wouldn't know what to do with the results anyway. For example, what's the difference in a tank with a orp of 200 compared with 400? Usually it's an indicator for the amount of dissved organics in the water. But I doubt that is the reason for unhealthy zoanthids. Maybe

 

[Edgecrusher28]

I don't. I wouldn't know what to do with the results anyway. For example, what's the difference in a tank with a orp of 200 compared with 400? Usually it's an indicator for the amount of dissved organics in the water. But I doubt that is the reason for unhealthy zoanthids. Maybe

Yeah I agree generally with that you are saying but at this point I am looking to try something else. My Zoa's are doing much better than there were when this whole process started but I am not getting the results i truly want and still have random issues with polyps closing and shirking. I have been doing Kalkwasser dosing for a few months now per the ACI method and have been able to lock down my PH to have swings less than .1 throughout the day. I continue to do my daily dosing per the Moonshiner's program but yet I still have problems. I noticed my ORP usually settles out around 250mV but have random drops at 110-116mV, figured what can it hurt to try Ozone on the tank to see if there is any improvement. Another super annoying thing about this tank is there seems to be a razors edge regarding algae. Even slightest bumps in P04 and algae explodes in the tank.