Zoa Help!!! Ongoing troubles for months on end

[onetootreefor]

Do you have asternia stars in your tank? I have had steel blue ones attack z's and p's. All it takes is one nip and a whole colony will close up.

I don't think I do...I only notice the white stars that stick to the glass and then some brittle stars

 

[AJ Reef]

The white stars that stick to the glass are asternias. "usually" the white ones are no trouble.

 

[saltyphish]

its when you notice those asteria stars on the zoas then you know you got a problem

 

[AJ Reef]

That's true saltyphish.

 

[defugium]

I run kesiles in my tank I have a sps and zoa tank about 30 sps corals and 50 plus z/p I did have the same problem a while back did all the same things then I started target feeding them a mix of phytoplankton, reef frenzy, and amino acids. With in a week huge difference color looks good ect. Also check out that shrimp at night they are known to eat z/p sometimes. Also look into getting a harlequin shrimp to cut down the amount of stars you have. Hope this helps

 

[JSeward]

I stopped losing zoanthids when I started leaving them alone. I used to target feed daily, constantly cleaned them off, and moved them around in an attempt to keep them alive. After a year or so of killing most of the zoa's that I put in my tank, I gave up. The remaining polyps were pushed to the side to make room for some new LPS corals. After a few months of completely ignoring the zoanthids in my tank, they looked amazing. Large polyps and good growth. In my opinion, constantly messing with zoanthids is the main reason people have trouble with them. Too much light being a close second.

 

[onetootreefor]

UPDATE!

I noticed one day I was messing with my light and i was touching the remote aux cord and the light powered on, so I'm thinking that shouldn't happen too much current in the tank. My friend comes over with a voltmeter and we give it a go. Sure enough the tank has 28 volts, and we started unplugging things from my surge protector. Each pump or power head or skimmer added 3-5 volts until it reached 0 volts. We ended up removing all pumps and everything except the heater, the light power, and the remote for the light. In total 6 components until it reached 0

Is this a concern? How can I correct this if it is?

 

[that Reef Guy]

Peppermints are evil! :lol:

Why do you say that Peppermint Shrimp are Evil?

 

[Oscaror]

Why do you say that Peppermint Shrimp are Evil?

There are three varieties of peppermint shrimp, based on their stripes. I'm not gonna go into detail, but one eats aiptasia, one is useless and just "ornamental" (if you'd call it that) and one eats lots of corals.