Zoanthids, Are they really a beginner coral?

[joseserrano]

10 alk isn’t the issue, nor the alk to po4/nitrate ratio. That’s for sps. Zoas can be getting picked on/eaten by something, have a fungal Or bacterial infection, pets, zoas pox,... all very easily treated. I doubt water parameters are your issue.

 

[ectoaesthetics]

Yeah I don’t see a reason to suspect nutrient levels either. My current tank struggled to stay above zeros -with a lot of protein input. And they DO struggle at zero -in fact I melted a couple of colonies recently... due to that... but ANYTHING above zero seems to be fine.

has it always been the same tank? I once had a tank that could not keep mushrooms alive -like at all- no matter what I did. Still never figured that one out.

 

[Randomwhiteguy89]

I’ve had tons of names zoanthids over my 10+ years in the hobby and never had any problems I’ve dipped and looked them over and can’t see any pests the only thing I can see possibly attacking them is my filefish I’ve had him for about a year and the problem started about 8 months ago in my 75 gallon about 5 months ago I upgraded to the 125 and it seemed like they started doing better but now there back to disappearing here and there I’ve had my eye on the fish for some time and I’ve never seen him nip at any of the corals He gets fed fairly well and I have some small aiptasia that pop up here and there that he eats

 

[mindme]

I’ve been in the reefing hobby for over 10 years and in that amount of time I’ve had so many different types and variations of zoanthids some do good some do ok and some just melt away but recently I’ve had no luck and I’m unsure why.
I have a 125 gallon mixed reef and everything in the tank is growing amazing I have started fragging some of my lps, and sps due to it growing into one another but for some reason my zoanthids just keep melting away I’m at the point where I don’t want to spend anymore money on them.
Water parameters
Salinity 1.026
Ph between 8.2 and 8.4
Nitrates 10 ppm
Phosphate .04
Ammonia 0
Temp 78
Calcium 420
I am getting confused on the matter people always say myself included oh it’s your first tank try some zoas there a beginner coral but yet somehow I am growing all sorts of acros, and lps corals like wildfire and yet can’t keep a colony of zoanthids alive does anybody have any idea why?

I agree, they can be pretty tough at times. I've been struggling with some for the past 10 months now.

25g Tank started out and the zoas were doing really well. One day in spots, some of them started doing worse. This was shortly after adding new lights(Kessil A160WE). I had also used Vibrant to get rid of some bryopsis. So I thought well maybe the lights were too bright, or maybe it was the Vibrant. So I took them down all the way to 30% slowly over weeks. No real change. During this time I'm also doing water changes constantly. No change. Some zoas are doing well, the ones near them not so much. At one point I had a colony that wasn't doing well, so I took the original frag part and put it in another tank - opens up and does great. The zoas that had grown on the rocks and were still in the tank, not so much.

I moved the hammer(doing just fine) to another tank, maybe it's stinging them. Nope.

Maybe it's current in tank, buy a meter. Nope.

Maybe it's metals, buy stuff to take out metals. Nope.

Meanwhile the entire time this is going on, my montiporas have quadrupled in size and are thriving. My Duncan grew 4 new heads from 1 and is doing great. My leptastrea at one point started to show signs of stress, but only on the top polyps. I ended up taking out about 4 zoa frags and putting them in my other tank(all of them had grown onto the rocks, so a good bit stayed in the old tank.

Finally I have things going well again it seems. The leptrastrea is opening up like it did before, the zoas that were left on the rocks are open and doing well. I've moved the hammer back into the tank. My lights are at 100% intensity.

There are only 2 things that I think could have fixed it. 1 of them is many water changes, but I don't think that was it. I think what I did more than anything was I added a lot more flow. A lot more flow. I believe what happened was when I first put the original powerheads in they were giving me good/decent flow in the tank. Overtime they got much weaker and I didn't realize just how much weaker they were. I put in a much bigger powerhead than what I had previously and everything has started to perk back up.

I think because the monti's were so high up they were getting better flow, the hammer was on a rock out front getting better flow, the duncan is up midway getting good flow, that they continued to do well. The majority of the zoas that did well were also in places of higher flow, even though they were close to each other.

But it's hard to ever really know because it could have been something I did 2 months ago and it just happened to start showing results when I changed out the powerhead. Who knows.

Try increasing the flow around them and see how they respond.

 

[mkwarner77]

Your not alone, I've had the same problem. the first couple years my zoas did great. After a tank crash a couple years ago, I haven't been able to keep them. Pallys, mushrooms, hammers, frogspawn, lobo, monti caps and blasto all doing great. zoas I've tried lately just don't like the tank.

 

[fish farmer]

I think palys are beginner friendly. Zoas are hit and miss. The common ones are pretty hardy but I’ve had small ones just melt for no reason at all. I’ve changed my opinion since starting on the beginner friendliness of zoas lol

I have the same experience as well....ugly palys are bulletproof and grow fast, then fast growing zoas, then pretty palys. I can't seem to keep pink zoas.

My nutrients were very high for years and don't know what happen to the zoas I had years ago. I still got the mushrooms, brown palys, colt, nephtia though.

 

[EntitledSushi]

Zoas and GSP are the only things that have done well in my tank. I think they are more tolerant of mistakes / excursions than other corals. I have always had high nitrates and phosphates so that may be a clue.

 

[sfin52]

They shouldn't be sold to beginners at all given how dangerous they are, saying that I wonder if it's possible to extract their palytoxin and use it against a foe, I'm sure if someone did that they'd be banned. I fragged many and had fancy named ones, got squirted on a couple times, lucky I always wore eye protection and gloves.

Hawaiians did just that.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Good discussion!

 

[92Miata]

Never had any problems with them. Super easy.

That being said, I can grow montis and acros and all sorts of other stuff - but can't keep a birdsnest (stylo or seriatapora) alive for the life of me. Something has to be your Eleanor.

 

[plc001]

They shouldn't be sold to beginners at all given how dangerous they are, saying that I wonder if it's possible to extract their palytoxin and use it against a foe, I'm sure if someone did that they'd be banned. I fragged many and had fancy named ones, got squirted on a couple times, lucky I always wore eye protection and gloves.

It just hurt a bit;-)

 

[Nano sapiens]

From personal experience...

Speaking of pests, those cute little scuttling Gammarus Amphipods often turn into Zoa munchers when they get older/larger. They attack at night when the aquarist normally doesn't notice the behavior and typical reef fish are asleep. And they are often selective, sometimes leaving one type of Zoa untouched while destroying another type right next to it.

Shine a light on those Zoas that are having trouble at night. If you see a 3/8 - 1/2" amphipods trying to pry out tentacles to much on, then that's at least one of the issues (if you are lucky, may be the only one). After seeing this behavior and loosing 3/4 of my Zoa morphs a few years back, I completely eliminated these amphipods from a nano tank. I then had much more success with Zoas.

Good luck!

 

[Jax15]

You're not alone, and I don't think anyone has solved this one. Look at this thread - people either can keep them, or can't - but nobody can confidently say why!

It's definitely frustrating, in my old 20g I had no problem with zoas. Now, in my 100g that has fantastic water params, zoas just won't grow and often will melt. Very frustrating, but just goes to show you that they like some tanks more than others. It probably is a nutrient thing... but I'm not willing to raise mine a bunch to test that theory!

 

[blasterman]

I've grown some spectacular zoa / paly gardens, and no, they ARE NOT a beginner coral. This urban myth needs to stop.

If you have an established and thriving SPS tank chances are you can throw some high end zoas in there and forget about them. They dont really care about calcium and dKH stability, so the myth starts there.

Palys and zoas cam be very fussy in regards to nuisance algae, water pH, low nitrate and the common nutrient inbalances that occur in younger tanks. Some palys can also be extremely vicious when it comes to biological warfare. Some others like green implosions will tolerate bad tank conditions, but over run the tank when things get better.

I rank palys and zoas about the same as LPS when it comes to hardiness. Some palys, aka green implosions and other wild specimens are up there with rhodactis shrooms in terms of toughness, but they become a nuisance in ideal conditions.

Even in my ideal paly gardens I will get occasional melting, and have never figured out why. However, I've never 'melted' a blue digipora or green pocillopora coral and in my experience those two specific SPS corals will put up with tank conditions that will cause most zoanthids to curl up and wither.

 

[blasterman]

They shouldn't be sold to beginners at all given how dangerous they are,

Most zoas and palys are harmless and no more dangerous than other soft corals. The ones containing palytoxin are specifically documented. The bad ones are about the size of a nickel, and a pale, semi translucent olive green color. They are pretty ugly.

I've fragged jillions of palys and zoas over the years along with my friends and never had a problem. My rock flowers on the other hand will give you a pretty nice sting.

 

[Steven Garland]

I have had great success and failures with Z's and P's throughout my 10 years in the hobby.

I have had colonies be fine for upwards of a year then BOOM melt away or close up and take months to open back up for no reason.

I think a good key point to keeping them happy is a slightly dirty tank,and stability. Stability being more so the bigger part than the dirtiness.