Zoa don't like my tank?

[barti92]

Hello Everybody!

I have a problem with my first Zoa. At first, let me give you a short introduction into my tank. It is quite a fresh project (started 4 months) ago, but it has already passed the nitrogen cycle. All parameters are good and stabilized. At the moment it looks like this:

• NH3 = NO2 = PO4 = 0,
• NO3 ~0,
• Ca = 450,
• KH = 8,
• Salinity= 1.025,
• Temperature ~25 C.

6 days ago I bought my first zoa coral (don't know the exact species) and from the beggining I have a problem with this coral. It is still closed (or not fully opened) and what is (for me) worse - it doesn't have any colors. Only one "head" has nice fluo-orange color and all the rest is brown. I am new in the Zoa topics and I would be grateful for all advices, because I have no idea what to do.

I have noticed that my asterins were interested in my corals so I decided to throw them away (of course still there are some, but about 30 stars have been already removed). I also noticed zoa eating nudibranch and I was able to kill 2 of them (some are still in the tank).

Anyway - I believe that the conditions inside are quite decent, my Euhpyllia for instance is in a really good shape, but Zoa (which I would like to have many) is just not cooperating.

I would be grateful for all replies!
Below you can see how it looks.

 

[James M]

Welcome to reef2reef !!!
Your zoas are stretching meaning they need more light. So I would suggest moving them up higher until they return to normal

 

[Holy_makerel]

Zoas also generally like some nitrate and PO4 in the tank. You'll see them struggle without any nutrients to take up

 

[sfin52]

O nitrates and phosphates aren't good either. Those are the building blocks of life. Remember Zooxanthellae are an algea or close to algea they need nitrates and phosphates to process the light. Po4 .5 no3 5-10 is are a good area to be .
What type of lights are you running

 

[sfin52]

welcome to reef2reef

 

[Jvesche20]

Welcome to reef2reef !!!
Your zoas are stretching meaning they need more light. So I would suggest moving them up higher until they return to normal

Is this the only reason why they extend? I have a zoa garden on the bottom of my tank and I have 11 different zoas and 1 of them are super extended. But none of the others are extended.

 

[Jvesche20]

This is an older picture but I’m not home to take a current picture. There’s 2 zoas with their polips extended. They are growing heads.

 

[littlebigreef]

There's a difference between cycled and mature aquariums. As pointed out zoas benefit from some phosphates and nitrates. While you can certainly keep zoas in your tank now you'll enjoy greater success as the aquarium matures. Unfortunately there's no way to speed that process along.

 

[barti92]

Welcome to reef2reef !!!
Your zoas are stretching meaning they need more light. So I would suggest moving them up higher until they return to normal

To be honest they are almost on the top of my life rock - the distance between light source and zoa is about 25 cm.

O nitrates and phosphates aren't good either. Those are the building blocks of life. Remember Zooxanthellae are an algea or close to algea they need nitrates and phosphates to process the light. Po4 .5 no3 5-10 is are a good area to be .
What type of lights are you running

Would that mean that "0" parameters might not be best for Zoas? If so - maybe I should just wait till NO3 and PO4 increase.
I use Sirius Nano (polish microbrand) - it is 36W lamp consisting of 3W Power Leds. In Poland this lamp is considered as a really good choice for smaller projects. In my case 40x40x40 cube.

 

[sfin52]

yes 0 is not good. Are you running any nitrate and phosphates reducing agents.

Do you have any fish?

Another reason that zoa will stretch is for water movement. Noticed that with mine changed the flow and went back to normal.

 

[Bounce House]

I have had multiple zoas in the past, and they always needed more light than I thought they would need.

 

[barti92]

I do not use anything at the moment. My filtration is basing on cascade filter (filled with Siporax and filtering straw).
I have 2 amphiprion ocellaris.

 

[sfin52]

I do not use anything at the moment. My filtration is basing on cascade filter (filled with Siporax and filtering straw).
I have 2 amphiprion ocellaris.

How's the flow.

Where they stretched when you bought them?

 

[barti92]

I have 2 x Hydor Coralia Nano 900.
I would say that the flow is quite significant. But what is important - none of pomps is directed directly at Zoa.

 

[sfin52]

I would provide a little more movement around the zoa and see of that helps. That may help with stretching color may be nutrient related.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

One thing to think about with zoas, is some like high light, some like low, but most can be worked up to high light. I have utter chaos and pink panthers that sit in 80par and 400-450 par, with an oddity of utter chaos in over 500 par. None of them reach for more light, and none are more retracted or closed up than others. Granted when I got all of them, they were previously in very low light. The ones up high were slowly worked up there, and the ones down low were used to it. If thinking it is a light issue for the ones reaching, it is hard to know, but were they in higher par at the place you got them from?

I have also seen zoas reach is something is bothering them. Like they stretch to get away from whatever is at their base. For example, I have a tailspot blenny that loves to sit on one of my zoa islands and when he does, they zoas he is sitting on reach around him. He is then "covered by zoas".

As for flow, it can cause issues as well. My zoas up high and in a lot of par are also in a lot of flow, as they sit at the same level as my SPS. The ones down low are in very low flow to moderate flow.

The biggest thing with zoas, is they act wierd from time to time, especially when acclimating. I have a few wild colonies I picked up that have been in my frag tank for 3 months and are just not starting to open fully. Didn't matter where they were with light or flow. They just would not open. Yet I have bought wild colonies that opened within hours of being in the frag tank.

The best thing I can think for this, is to put them somewhere that closely matched where they came from and see what they do. If you want to move them later, work at it very slowly and they will adjust.

EDIT: Forgot the nutrients part.

I have zoas in all my tanks. Some are ULNS and some are just plain dirty. I can say the dirtier tanks have better growth, better coloring, and overall just look better. Being as you have LPS in there also, they do not mind a little dirt either.

 

[barti92]

Before I reply - I would like to express my delight caused by this discussion. I have never thaught that I might recieve 15 essential answer in 1 hour - big WOW for you all!

Might be a silly thing but I am not familiar with term "par" - what does it mean? Is it a shortcut or a distance unit? Anyway - before, they were located in a "dachshund tank" and I would say that they were way lower from the light source than they are now.

I think that additional problem might be zoa eating nudibranch - I am pretty sure one of them is quite close to zoa - I can see this "spider's web" near, but I am not able to find / remove it.

Now I will reduce the flow significantly and see what happens.

Maybe it is just a matter of time. There is one important thing I haven't mentioned about - I didn't use a dip clean, before I put them in my tank. I bought them from a professional shop (one of bests in Poland), so the probability of unwanted refugees is rather moderate, but maybe it should be done anyway?

 

[sfin52]

Before I reply - I would like to express my delight caused by this discussion. I have never thaught that I might recieve 15 essential answer in 1 hour - big WOW for you all!

Might be a silly thing but I am not familiar with term "par" - what does it mean? Is it a shortcut or a distance unit? Anyway - before, they were located in a "dachshund tank" and I would say that they were way lower from the light source than they are now.

I think that additional problem might be zoa eating nudibranch - I am pretty sure one of them is quite close to zoa - I can see this "spider's web" near, but I am not able to find / remove it.

Now I will reduce the flow significantly and see what happens.

Maybe it is just a matter of time. There is one important thing I haven't mentioned about - I didn't use a dip clean, before I put them in my tank. I bought them from a professional shop (one of bests in Poland), so the probability of unwanted refugees is rather moderate, but maybe it should be done anyway?

can you get a pic of the spider web thing. It may not be a nudi but a snail. Vermid snail they produce a web to catch floating particles and can irritate corals.

Par is used to measure light. The higher the par number stronger the light.

 

[barti92]

I tried to catch this web but my Xioami camera quality is too poor.
Anyway, a little update with my parameters:

NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 > 0.2 mg/L
PO4 0
Ca 460 mg/L
MG 1300 mg/L
pH 8.1
KH 8.4
Salinity 1.024

I decided to perform a dip bath for my Zoa and one unwanted 'gentleman' appeared:

Might it be the cause of my zoa problems?
I also decided to place it in a different spot - the flow is more "gentle" here.
I will see what happens.

Edit:
"Sider's web" I was talking about:

 

[barti92]