need some tips from the Zoa gods here!

[reefmaster70]

Hey everyone. I have questions regarding my Zoa's.....one of the easiest (yeah right) corals to keep, right?

Anyway, I have a couple of mixed reef tanks. a 20g Nuvo AIO and a 75g reef. AI Hydra's over both. Now, I am well versed in keeping a reef tank as I've been doing it since 1997. BUT for some reason the large zoa garden in my 75g is unhappy and hasn't opened up in about 10 days now. My water parameters are well within mixed reef standards. I successfully keep an assortment of various corals from Hammers, Torches, Acans, Blastomussas, a few sps like birdsnest, green slimeball, some plating Montipora, a couple of Maxima clams etc. You get the point. I know what I'm doing, and can keep corals alive and happy.

Anyway, about 10 days ago I did allow my salinity to dip from 1.026 to 1.024 on a water change I was doing, but I quickly caught it, and made quick adjustments. Again, none of my corals showed any signs of distress, EXCEPT my mixed zoa garden that sits on my sand bed. It a garden of about 75 or so polyps of various colors, and they all closed up and have yet to reopen. My garden that is in my 20g is open and as happy as can be. Since they have closed up, I have been checking and rechecking ALL of my parameters daily just to be sure I'm not missing something, and everything is in check. My fish are happy, my SPS are happy, my LPS are happy, my clams are happy, but my Zoa's are Unhappy for some reason and I don't know why.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you

 

[Coral Memere]

I don't think it's your parameters. Something is aggravating them. Could there be a long hair that got caught in them? Bristleworms? Imbedded astarina stars? Detritus that settled in between when you did the water change? Brandon at zoanthisa.com says that the zoas don't open, take a turkey baster to them gently, daily and see (and blow away) what's making them mad.

 

[reefmaster70]

I do turkey baste them every other day. my sand sifting goby like to drop sand down on them occasionally and I have to blow it off, BUT..that's never bothered them before. again, I blow that off of them every other day. I am almost to the point of taking the entire garden out and doing a "dip" in Revive and see if that helps. I've inspected for critters..no asterina or bristleworms in sight.

 

[reefpanda]

Do you have any shrimps in the tank?

 

[reefmaster70]

for inverts I have: 2 strawberry conches, 2 emerald crabs, 1 pom pom crab, 1 pithos crab, 1 pincushion urchin, 1 tuxedo urchin and 1 blue coral banded shrimp. various snails: turbo, astrea, etc.

So YES...one shrimp the blue coral banded.

 

[ColorMeGone]

If it was me I would dip them with something like Reef Dip by Seachem with Iodine in it.
Then a bath of Peroxide solution at 20% Peroxide to 80% tank water for several minutes.

 

[reefmaster70]

If it was me I would dip them with something like Reef Dip by Seachem with Iodine in it.
Then a bath of Peroxide solution at 20% Peroxide to 80% tank water for several minutes.

I've used Two Little Fishies "Revive" dip for years on all of my other corals prior to going into my tank, with the exception of when I had some GHA growing between the stalks of my Duncan colony, then I would take the duncan out of the tank, and use a small paint brush to brush on 3% Hydrogen peroxide. That works great for GHA removal. Otherwise, my go to dip is the Revive. I'll probably use that for my zoa's today.

 

[ColorMeGone]

Never used Revive but I believe that the Iodine in my dip is good for Zoes but I'm just guessing. Lol. Peroxide dip would be my second dip no matter what.....

 

[littlebigreef]

Are/have you seen any color shifting in the affected polyps? Have you noticed any mottled coloration on the tissue? If parameters are good wholly possible it’s a pathogen. Kudos for being a baster- cryptic pockets in zoa colonies can give rise to bacterial and protozan infections.

Early intervention always yields the best results. Contingent to any reservations you may have I’d suggest a chemi clean treatment on the tank, see if you can nip it in the bud. I’m assuming zoas need to be treated in situ.

 

[reefmaster70]

Are/have you seen any color shifting in the affected polyps? Have you noticed any mottled coloration on the tissue? If parameters are good wholly possible it’s a pathogen. Kudos for being a baster- cryptic pockets in zoa colonies can give rise to bacterial and protozan infections.

Early intervention always yields the best results. Contingent to any reservations you may have I’d suggest a chemi clean treatment on the tank, see if you can nip it in the bud. I’m assuming zoas need to be treated in situ.

nope..no color shifting and the ones that are open look just fine. I took a photo, but for some reason I haven't been able to post ANY photos here on reef to reef for a week now. I get some error message all the time.

 

[Grossman90]

Pics would help of the zoa

 

[kingranch2003]

Do you have any shrimps in the tank?

Yep, that's always one of my first questions in these situations. Especially with good parameters.

 

[reefmaster70]

Pics would help of the zoa

Here is a pic of a garden right next to the ones closed

 

[reefmaster70]

Here's the two gardens that aren't too happy right now.....