Zoas melting - questions and experiences!! - what do you know?

[Dimorb]

Need some input.

Every year around this time I loose some zoanthus colonies and I cant figure out why.

Perfect colonies 25 - 100+ polyps which has opened up nicely throughout the year start to shrink up and melt away. Some of them stay closed for a long period of time only to be covered in some brown muscus before the start to melt others start to melt right away.

I keep a minimum standard of 90-95% NSW in all the measureable values - ATI ICP - and necessary dosing every other week.

Temp isnt the problem since I use teco chiller and keep the same temp all year around.

I use reverse osmosis (RO) water for refill.

Every coral entering the aquarium are dipped. Both in pest control and zoas with hydrogenperoxid.

So I would like to know what could be the problem?

Does "melting" spread from polyp to polyp and between colonies?

What sort of action do you recommend - another dip, keep in less light, keep in more light etc.. ??

At this moment I have almost 80 different kinds of zoanthus colonies - and some frags of course but only the following ones shows signs of melting/problem..

Sakura sunrise
Utter chaos
speckled fire and ice
speckled krakatoa
kung fu
Sunny D's

Some of them Im not to worried about since I have multiple colonies but some I dont..

Very grateful for all the help.

@Reefing_addiction
@footgal
@Zoa_Fanatic

 

[jurgenph]

I use RO water for refill.

RO or RODI?

J.

 

[Dimorb]

RO or RODI?

J.

I ment reverse osmosis water.

I keep every parameter within normal sea water range.. wouldnt be possible with tap water or anything else.

 

[jurgenph]

I ment reverse osmosis water.

I keep every parameter within normal sea water range.. wouldnt be possible with tap water or anything else.

reserve osmosis water by itself, without the DI stage will still have many undesirable elements in the water.

many municipal water companies change their source water at certain times of the year, and can introduce different levels of contaminants.

have you had your RO water tested using one of the popular ICP testing companies?


J.

 

[Dimorb]

reserve osmosis water by itself, without the DI stage will still have many undesirable elements in the water.

many municipal water companies change their source water at certain times of the year, and can introduce different levels of contaminants.

have you had your RO water tested using one of the popular ICP testing companies?


J.

Yes.. thats what I ment in my post..

I keep water parameters ALL OF THEM at 90-95% of NSW.. testing display and osmosis water once every 10 day.

 

[jurgenph]

Yes.. thats what I ment in my post..

I keep water parameters ALL OF THEM at 90-95% of NSW.. testing display and osmosis water once every 10 day.

still unclear what exactly you mean with RO ... do you mean reverse osmosis, or De-Ionized reverse osmosis?
how many stages is your water filter?
what is the TDS of your top of water?

can you share the tests results of your water? both tank and top off.

did you test your top off water for chlorines, chloramines, ammonia, other heavy metals or contaminants?


J.

 

[coralfishreef]

Some of the local water utilities company flushed out the hydrants this week. Are you on city water? Check with your utilities for hydrant flushing or yearly maintenance.

I recently lost some zoas from higher salinity. Double check salinity.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

Ok so I e read somewhere, can’t remember where, about others having the same issue, once a year they lose colonies for no known reason.
You mentioned an ATI ICP. What’s your iodine level?

you said you see a build up on polyps I would manually remove with a light brushing with a soft tooth brush.
If these colonies or frags are removable it never hurts to pull and give iodine baths to those that look troubled.
If you can try and frag off the affected ones.

 

[littlebigreef]

I’ve been collecting zoas for a long time, 11-12 years. Been in the hobby since the mid 90’s. I’ve got about 200 strains (+/-20) (after a recent move) now in a zoa dedicated trough. Previously I’d keep my collection in a 125 gal piggy-backed on a 220 display loaded with fish, shroom, lps, some sps. For the last 5 years I’ve been between 150-200 strains. Here’s my observations from experience.

With zoas there’s a certain threshold a collection reaches before you start to have consistent issues. At any given time I expect to have 10 strains on the mend, 10 more looking ‘off’ and another 10 doing the slow fade. The Husbandry you have in place is good- dipping for pests (you didn’t specify) and the peroxide (I’m assuming for nuisance algae). Bacterial and (fungal?) stuff can still slip in. For that reason collectors will regularly treat with Chemiclean which- while it says on the label it doesn’t contain erythromycin- supposedly it does. This is a ‘global hammer’ to treat the whole system. The problem is that treatment requires turning off your skimmer for a few days which, depending on your configuration and bio-load, could be problematic for your system. A more focused method is to pull colonies that look off and treat them with a furan-2 dip (followed by a mild lugols bath) every day for 4 days and then take a 1-2 break before doing another cycle. I don’t mess around any more, If a zoa looks at me cross-eyed it’s getting dipped. Early intervention in key. Finally your small hammer is a mild lugols dip- sometimes that’s all a zoa (or coral generally) needs to get it over the bump. Now, it’s tough to see colonies that had been doing well burn out and die, but this happens when you play the long game. Water quality (in the system- think old tank syndrome), water quality of your RO output (checking with a TDS meter), age on your bulbs (if using T5/MH), age of the filters in your RO unit, changes in bio load (new fish, growing sps/lps colonies pulling more alk/calc), hot spots in your salt or dosing products are some of the larger variables you can (or can’t) account for. Of the strains you mentioned only speckled kraks stand out as particularly temperamental. But, some times stuff just wants to die despite our best efforts. You didn’t mention nutrition but obviously feeding is another variable to consider.

My question to you, aside from the close/brown mucus melt what other types (if any) are you seeing? Any displaying severe color shifts? Or open shrinking melting? Any exposing their guts taken on a ‘blown out’ appearance when they melt?

 

[Dimorb]

still unclear what exactly you mean with RO ... do you mean reverse osmosis, or De-Ionized reverse osmosis?
how many stages is your water filter?
what is the TDS of your top of water?

can you share the tests results of your water? both tank and top off.

did you test your top off water for chlorines, chloramines, ammonia, other heavy metals or contaminants?


J.

It's REVERSE OSMOSIS.. nothing else..

It's a filter for particels, active carbon filter and a membran. One hose clean water - one dirty.

Don't have a TDS meter. But how can that be important if I test ICP - what parameters isnt tested with an ICP test but can be detected with a TDS?

i'll get a new icp tonight or on monday.

 

[Dimorb]

I’ve been collecting zoas for a long time, 11-12 years. Been in the hobby since the mid 90’s. I’ve got about 200 strains (+/-20) (after a recent move) now in a zoa dedicated trough. Previously I’d keep my collection in a 125 gal piggy-backed on a 220 display loaded with fish, shroom, lps, some sps. For the last 5 years I’ve been between 150-200 strains. Here’s my observations from experience.

With zoas there’s a certain threshold a collection reaches before you start to have consistent issues. At any given time I expect to have 10 strains on the mend, 10 more looking ‘off’ and another 10 doing the slow fade. The Husbandry you have in place is good- dipping for pests (you didn’t specify) and the peroxide (I’m assuming for nuisance algae). Bacterial and (fungal?) stuff can still slip in. For that reason collectors will regularly treat with Chemiclean which- while it says on the label it doesn’t contain erythromycin- supposedly it does. This is a ‘global hammer’ to treat the whole system. The problem is that treatment requires turning off your skimmer for a few days which, depending on your configuration and bio-load, could be problematic for your system. A more focused method is to pull colonies that look off and treat them with a furan-2 dip (followed by a mild lugols bath) every day for 4 days and then take a 1-2 break before doing another cycle. I don’t mess around any more, If a zoa looks at me cross-eyed it’s getting dipped. Early intervention in key. Finally your small hammer is a mild lugols dip- sometimes that’s all a zoa (or coral generally) needs to get it over the bump. Now, it’s tough to see colonies that had been doing well burn out and die, but this happens when you play the long game. Water quality (in the system- think old tank syndrome), water quality of your RO output (checking with a TDS meter), age on your bulbs (if using T5/MH), age of the filters in your RO unit, changes in bio load (new fish, growing sps/lps colonies pulling more alk/calc), hot spots in your salt or dosing products are some of the larger variables you can (or can’t) account for. Of the strains you mentioned only speckled kraks stand out as particularly temperamental. But, some times stuff just wants to die despite our best efforts. You didn’t mention nutrition but obviously feeding is another variable to consider.

My question to you, aside from the close/brown mucus melt what other types (if any) are you seeing? Any displaying severe color shifts? Or open shrinking melting? Any exposing their guts taken on a ‘blown out’ appearance when they melt?

Thank you very much for this.

I've noticed the same thing. When you have 20-30 morphs there's always some polyps that shows signs of weakness, bad temper or something hurting them.. when I upgraded my collection with additional zoas this problem expanded quite a bit.. perhaps I should turn a blind eye to it and be happy when they look good and ignore everything else. With that said: Im not a collector of zoas - I do have alot of different morphs but a high diversity in the display.

I've never used or seen lugols dip in Norway is there something else that can be used in same concentration? Perhaps another brand?

Regarding the other notes..

Water quality are perfect if using ICP as a reference.

RO filter - changes every 6 month

T5 tubes - changes every 8-10 month - I have PAR's between 150 - 560 in the aquarium.. zoas placed at 150-200 but I also keep "back ups" other places with lower pars.

UPDATE

The ones with brown muscus are starting to open up again but only the once where the muscus are gone. They are really tiny.. talking 1-3 mm.

The others look a little bit different.

Some are retracted, looking really small - almost like they've tried to close and didnt have enough time to completely retracted all of the polyp.

Others looks really pointy.. it's the mouth that points outwards..

Some of them have emptied their insides.. I'll try to get some pictures for you.

 

[jurgenph]

It's REVERSE OSMOSIS.. nothing else..

It's a filter for particels, active carbon filter and a membran. One hose clean water - one dirty.

Don't have a TDS meter. But how can that be important if I test ICP - what parameters isnt tested with an ICP test but can be detected with a TDS?

i'll get a new icp tonight or on monday.

can you share your latest icp test that was done on your RO and tank water? i still havent seen any actual tests results posted here.

your ro water could be loaded with ammonia, chlorines, chloramines, or other things... icp won't show those.


J.

 

[Dimorb]

Bad pic but cant get a better one today..

4 polyps left - used to be totally covered - you can see the one polyp (to the right) that's melting.

It seems like it actually melts like ice in sun.

 

[Dimorb]

Try to close but the crown still shows.

 

[Dimorb]

Brown muscus - some polyps coming out again others really tiny.

 

[Dimorb]

Wont close normally

 

[Dimorb]

Polyps shrinking up. Some parts of the polyp still shows even when it tries to close up.

This one might not be the best to examin since I splitted the colony into 12 frags.. this is one of the frags - 40-50 polyps.

 

[Dimorb]

can you share your latest icp test that was done on your RO and tank water? i still havent seen any actual tests results posted here.

your ro water could be loaded with ammonia, chlorines, chloramines, or other things... icp won't show those.


J.

Hello again.

I'll attache the last one but some things are done since this one.. nitrate is lowered down to 8-10 pm.. so the test results are actual real "old" since it's been a month

If there where to be ammonia or something else in the water.. wouldnt that show in other corals? Or smell?

Also I assume that if there where ammonia present the nitrate and nitrite values would show this.

 

[Justdrew]

Having RO by itself could be an issue. RO only rejects 95%-98% of impurities based on water pressure, temperature, which membrane, etc. It is highly recommended to put a DI canister or two at the end of the system.

 

[JPK]

Same thing happens to me, it seems to hit one variety at a time. My sps etc are doing fine. I use RO/DI water etc

Here is an example of a few months apart. In the top pic, my WWC purple monsters melted first (bare portion of rock bottom left).

bottom pic all the blue zoas on the tank bottom melted and now the red/orange variety on the rock are starting to melt.