george9
Active Member
Hi all,
Am suddenly dealing with a bit of a mystery with one morph of zoanthid within my zoa garden. I have about 6 different morphs growing within a garden millimeters away from each other. Only the hornets are closed tight - even the polyps of hornets that are growing within other morhps nowhere near the other hornets. No other morph seems to be affected by this which is odd since they all grow next to each other. On Wednesday 6/21 (4 days ago) I noticed the hornets a bit irritated. The colony was half closed with the other half opening/closing periodically throughout the day. By the next day, all polyps were closed tight. They've remained closed since then, meanwhile the rest of my garden is open like normal. I don't see any signs of melting or shrinkage but I did notice they are shedding their skin. I blew off a bunch of translucent skin that was peeling off the closed polyps yesterday and was hoping they'd return to normal today, but no dice. Still closed solid as of this afternoon.
Here is the garden at its best (June 11 this month):
Here is is today:
The only changes I've made recently:
Peak lighting was increased by a measly 1% on June 16th. Not sure this would be enough to tick just the hornets off, but it has to be such a negligible difference in PAR to not make such a dramatic difference in appearance…or maybe it is?
Parameters:
I test alk daily, PO4 every other day and Ca, Mg, No3 weekly.
Alk - 7.6-7.8 this week
Ca - 420
Mg - 1350
Po4 - .07-.1
No3 - 5-10PPM
Salt - 34.5 ppt
It's notable that I have other zoanthid colonies throughout this tank nowhere near this garden which are also unbothered, and none of my expensive acros or SPS have been bothered whatsoever.
Pests?
I haven't added a new coral since February this year, and no new zoanthids in over a year. The odds that this is some zoanthid specific pest is low IMO since the other morphs sitting mm away from the hornets are unaffected, and since I haven't added any new zoas in a year. I cannot dip these since they've spread so far.
Coral warfare?
Notice there is a colony of bill murray acro that is growing right next to the closed hornets colony. Could it perhaps be at war with the zoas? I actually separated these zoas from this acro a couple of months ago with a piece of rubble so they wouldn't kill the acro. There was a time months ago where they grew next to each other touching and no warfare ensued, which is why I think this is less likely as well but still possible. I get up in the peak of night for work, and have not seen any filaments hitting this colony overnight.
I guess my main question is - why are they peeling? Is this normal? Has anyone seen this before? I see such minimal info about flesh peeling on closed zoanthids and even less data where an outcome was actually posted.
All in all, I don't think there is much I can do here given all of my other corals are happy, and I cannot remove this colony to dip. Despite this, any insight from anyone is appreciated and will be incredibly useful to diagnose this and help in the future.
thanks a bunch
Am suddenly dealing with a bit of a mystery with one morph of zoanthid within my zoa garden. I have about 6 different morphs growing within a garden millimeters away from each other. Only the hornets are closed tight - even the polyps of hornets that are growing within other morhps nowhere near the other hornets. No other morph seems to be affected by this which is odd since they all grow next to each other. On Wednesday 6/21 (4 days ago) I noticed the hornets a bit irritated. The colony was half closed with the other half opening/closing periodically throughout the day. By the next day, all polyps were closed tight. They've remained closed since then, meanwhile the rest of my garden is open like normal. I don't see any signs of melting or shrinkage but I did notice they are shedding their skin. I blew off a bunch of translucent skin that was peeling off the closed polyps yesterday and was hoping they'd return to normal today, but no dice. Still closed solid as of this afternoon.
Here is the garden at its best (June 11 this month):
Here is is today:
The only changes I've made recently:
Peak lighting was increased by a measly 1% on June 16th. Not sure this would be enough to tick just the hornets off, but it has to be such a negligible difference in PAR to not make such a dramatic difference in appearance…or maybe it is?
Parameters:
I test alk daily, PO4 every other day and Ca, Mg, No3 weekly.
Alk - 7.6-7.8 this week
Ca - 420
Mg - 1350
Po4 - .07-.1
No3 - 5-10PPM
Salt - 34.5 ppt
It's notable that I have other zoanthid colonies throughout this tank nowhere near this garden which are also unbothered, and none of my expensive acros or SPS have been bothered whatsoever.
Pests?
I haven't added a new coral since February this year, and no new zoanthids in over a year. The odds that this is some zoanthid specific pest is low IMO since the other morphs sitting mm away from the hornets are unaffected, and since I haven't added any new zoas in a year. I cannot dip these since they've spread so far.
Coral warfare?
Notice there is a colony of bill murray acro that is growing right next to the closed hornets colony. Could it perhaps be at war with the zoas? I actually separated these zoas from this acro a couple of months ago with a piece of rubble so they wouldn't kill the acro. There was a time months ago where they grew next to each other touching and no warfare ensued, which is why I think this is less likely as well but still possible. I get up in the peak of night for work, and have not seen any filaments hitting this colony overnight.
I guess my main question is - why are they peeling? Is this normal? Has anyone seen this before? I see such minimal info about flesh peeling on closed zoanthids and even less data where an outcome was actually posted.
All in all, I don't think there is much I can do here given all of my other corals are happy, and I cannot remove this colony to dip. Despite this, any insight from anyone is appreciated and will be incredibly useful to diagnose this and help in the future.
thanks a bunch
Last edited:
