ZOA help - shriveling up

krinkldink · Sep 28, 2023

Hello, I’ve had these zoa’s for about 6 months. Just recently they started shriveling up. I don’t have current water parameters, will take some to get tested this weekend as I don’t trust my color blind eyes or API tests.

Any ideas without seeing the water parameters? Tank has a pair of clowns and a diamond goby. Several snails and hermit crabs I bought from reefcleaners.

cnseekatz · Sep 28, 2023

So hard to say, but I'm curious what kind of light you have. Them stretching out like that makes me think they may need more light.

krinkldink · Sep 28, 2023

I have fluval marine 3.0, just a single one. I just increased the cyan, blue and purple to 100% starting today, the blue and purple were already at 100 but not cyan. I’ve had some algae issues so I backed the white down from around 75 to 35% starting today as well.

I have seen a snail and a hermit on the ZOA heads, so maybe they are just bothering them and low lighting…I don’t know.

krinkldink · Sep 30, 2023

Just closing the loop on this in case anyone else reads this. I had my water tested at LFS and my nitrates are 0. They advised I decrease water changes from every week to every other week. I may not clean the sand bed as thoroughly as I was and I’m going overfeed and use reef roads more than I was. Hopefully I see the Nitrates start to come back quickly.

I also picked up a Hanna checker for Nitrate HR. Going to leave my light settings alone for now and monitor Nitrates they come back quickly.

Johnic · Nov 29, 2023

Any word on this issue. My Zoa are doing the same and my nitrates are 11 and phos is .12. Par at the Zoa are 190 for me.

Kasrift · Nov 29, 2023

Johnic said:
Any word on this issue. My Zoa are doing the same and my nitrates are 11 and phos is .12. Par at the Zoa are 190 for me.

I'm not the original poster, but I can give my two cents.

Your nutrients and par sound good @Johnic . I'd look at flow or just try "cleaning" your zoa colony with a turkey baster at least weekly. Unless you have a ton of flow to blow detritus off them, it can settle between the polyps of the zoa mattes and cause them to be grumpy.

Johnic · Nov 29, 2023

Kasrift said:
I'm not the original poster, but I can give my two cents.

Your nutrients and par sound good @Johnic . I'd look at flow or just try "cleaning" your zoa colony with a turkey baster at least weekly. Unless you have a ton of flow to blow detritus off them, it can settle between the polyps of the zoa mattes and cause them to be grumpy.

Ok, I’ll try blowing them off once a week. It’s odd, the adjacent zoa look great But might get better flow. thanks a lot