Utter chaos not opening

canadianeh · Sep 25, 2020

They say that softies are very easy. However my utter chaos zoa on frag has not opened for several days now. My other zoas are fine and also all of my LPS.

why is this happening?

salinity 1.026
Temp 77-78
Alk 8.84-9
Cal 474
Mag 1342

footgal · Sep 25, 2020

Can we have a pic? No debris/algae on it right?

canadianeh · Sep 25, 2020

footgal said:
Can we have a pic? No debris/algae on it right?

Actually I see algae on it

footgal · Sep 25, 2020

canadianeh said:
Actually I see algae on it

Go ahead and do a peroxide (H2O2) dip to get rid of the algae or brush lightly with toothbrush. Zoas should open a day or two after that

canadianeh · Sep 25, 2020

footgal said:
Go ahead and do a peroxide (H2O2) dip to get rid of the algae or brush lightly with toothbrush. Zoas should open a day or two after that

Straight dip, or do I dilute it with tank water?

canadianeh · Oct 2, 2020

so I dipped the utter chaos in hydrogen peroxide two days ago, and all the algae is gone. However, it is still closed up. Is this normal? How long it will stay close up before it dies?

DanConnor · Oct 3, 2020

Utter Chaos can be a bit touchy- but they can go a long time without opening. Make sure its not getting too much flow or too much light- and just stay the course and maintain good water quality.

sfin52 · Oct 3, 2020

Moderate flow and moderate light middle of the tank. Decent groweres once they start.

Jeffcb · Oct 3, 2020

canadianeh · Oct 15, 2020

Just to give an update that my Utter Chaos is vanished. Literally. It was melting away and now it is completely gone. It was 1.5 polyp frag. I don't understand why. Everything else in the tank is healthy. The only think that I can think of was at one point I ran out of Trident reagent B and C. The Alk test always came back the same amount of number consecutively and this has never happened before. So at the time, I either did not dose Alk or dose too little or too much. I dose manually for now. Once I replaced the reagent B and C, I started to get the "normal" Alk test results. So it looks like with empty reagent B and C, it can mess up Alk test. At least that was my experience.

Anyway, is it possible that Alk swing can cause utter chaos zoa to melt away and then disappeared? Why my other corals were not effected at all?

footgal · Oct 15, 2020

canadianeh said:
Just to give an update that my Utter Chaos is vanished. Literally. It was melting away and now it is completely gone. It was 1.5 polyp frag. I don't understand why. Everything else in the tank is healthy. The only think that I can think of was at one point I ran out of Trident reagent B and C. The Alk test always came back the same amount of number consecutively and this has never happened before. So at the time, I either did not dose Alk or dose too little or too much. I dose manually for now. Once I replaced the reagent B and C, I started to get the "normal" Alk test results. So it looks like with empty reagent B and C, it can mess up Alk test. At least that was my experience.

Anyway, is it possible that Alk swing can cause utter chaos zoa to melt away and then disappeared? Why my other corals were not effected at all?

I don’t think the alk is the cause, you have other zoas right? If conditions aren’t favorable, zoas can and will straight up melt on you. This could be caused by them being sick to begin with, bad flow, bad lighting, or perams sorry about your zoas

Theyre a pretty common morph though so hopefully you can get some more

LeftyReefer · Oct 15, 2020

Could it have been the full strength peroxide dip?

I added a single polyp Utter Chaos zoa to my tank a few weeks ago... I dipped it in Revive and then a 5 minute peroxide dip, but I used 75% tank water and like 25% H202, not full strength. That was two weeks ago and now my single head zoa is now growing two new polyps and doing great.

Maybe the full strength dip was too much?

I don't think it was the alk swing as my tank went through a big alk swing recently... (dropped from 9 down to 5 over about 10 days unnoticecd) my UC didn't bat an eye the entire time. it wasn't until I started bringing alk up (too quickly) that they got a little unhappy.

footgal · Oct 15, 2020

LeftyReefer said:
Could it have been the full strength peroxide dip?

I added a single polyp Utter Chaos zoa to my tank a few weeks ago... I dipped it in Revive and then a 5 minute peroxide dip, but I used 75% tank water and like 25% H202, not full strength. That was two weeks ago and now my single head zoa is now growing two new polyps and doing great.

Maybe the full strength dip was too much?

I don't think it was the alk swing as my tank went through a big alk swing recently... (dropped from 9 down to 5 over about 10 days unnoticecd) my UC didn't bat an eye the entire time. it wasn't until I started bringing alk up (too quickly) that they got a little unhappy.

Maybe it was, I do a 50/50 H2O2/tank water dip. Could be that straight H2O2 especially while the polyp was open

canadianeh · Oct 15, 2020

footgal said:
Maybe it was, I do a 50/50 H2O2/tank water dip. Could be that straight H2O2 especially while the polyp was open

If you recall, my utter chaos was not opening up already for at least a week or more before I did the HP dip. After the dip, it cleared the algae but the UC still did not open up until it melted away.
Maybe it was the HP dip then. Too strong maybe. I will not give up and get another one. My other zoas are well