Zoa browning due to????

mnreefster · Jul 14, 2021

Hey all, having my blue hornet zoa colony turning brown and wondering if this is temporary or something else going on? Has done well over the past 4 months since I got him. All other corals doing well with no issues. I did move it from the left side to the middle of the tank since I had raised the rock up recently and it seemed to irritate the zoa and was too high in the tank since it wasn’t opening up after I raised the rock. But after moving it the zoa started turning brown and has gotten a bit worse in the past 10 days. Any help is appreciated!

redsea 350 - 93 gallons total
Nitrate- 8
Po4 - 0.03
Calcium - 415
DKh - 10.2
Salinity 35 ppt
Weekly water changes of at least 10-15%
Pics are with different lighting settings. I have two radion xr15 pro running about 60%

littlebigreef · Jul 14, 2021

First thing to do would be to brush the affected polyp off with a soft tooth brush or something similar. If it looks melty underneath I might just triage and cut the polyp off the colony to prevent a bacterial issue burning through the frag.

Alternatively if the polyp looks ok after a day or two let it be. If its still doing the same the next step would then be a mild bath in either lugols, or CoralRx.

mnreefster · Jul 14, 2021

littlebigreef said:
First thing to do would be to brush the affected polyp off with a soft tooth brush or something similar. If it looks melty underneath I might just triage and cut the polyp off the colony to prevent a bacterial issue burning through the frag.

Alternatively if the polyp looks ok after a day or two let it be. If its still doing the same the next step would then be a mild bath in either lugols, or CoralRx.

Thanks lbr. I was considering cleaving it to stay safe. I could give it a chance to redeem itself. It’s growing on the other side so that’s a plus I’d imagine.

littlebigreef · Jul 14, 2021

Cutting the mat but leaving affected polyps in place is a method I’ll use sometimes. Spares the polyp the stress of being remounted.

Naturally the tendency is to try and treat the frag and save all the polyps but considering it’s only one affected polyp at this point I’d say cut your loss lol.