Zoas only half open

elysics

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So I have this problem now for a month or so in my relatively new 12l zoa pico, where the zoas are not completely closed and not completely open, ever,not at the beginning of the lighting ramp up, not at its peak, not at the ramp down, not when it's off and only has ambient room light.

Tried feeding powdered food, a drop of iodine, no flow, little flow, high flow, gradually turned down my light from 60% peak of 50W to 27% peak, nothing helped. On advise of a local, I added carbon and did a 99% water change, as a result the rastas, fire and ice and Johnny pumpkin are open now but with very very short skirts while the zoas with the bigger polyps like the VDM and armor of God are still only half open. After the water change with freshly mixed salt water, my briareum was completely closed for a couple days, but is fully open again now.

The zoas frags and the initial water came from my other tank where o don't have these problems at all. Still too much light?

Parameters :

1.0265 s.g.
1 ppm NO3
0.03 ppm PO4
8.3 dKH
IMG_20210303_164509.jpg
 

Oscar47f

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The problem with doing a water change with an established systems water that the water is depleted of nutrients... your calcium, mag, alk, phos and nitrate may be in good health but your trace elements are probably not... that being said Dips never hurt you can try dipping the affected colonies, if you do a water change don’t do 99% use fresh mixed water probs 20% max... zoas can be finicky too like any other coral... your nutrient levels seem a tad bit low for my taste I usually keep my nitrate from 8-15 and phosphate at .1-.2 my zoanthid tanks have a pretty decent amount of flow, and lighting would depend on the tank but I get 80-190 par in post places
 
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elysics

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The problem with doing a water change with an established systems water that the water is depleted of nutrients... your calcium, mag, alk, phos and nitrate may be in good health but your trace elements are probably not... that being said Dips never hurt you can try dipping the affected colonies, if you do a water change don’t do 99% use fresh mixed water probs 20% max... zoas can be finicky too like any other coral... your nutrient levels seem a tad bit low for my taste I usually keep my nitrate from 8-15 and phosphate at .1-.2 my zoanthid tanks have a pretty decent amount of flow, and lighting would depend on the tank but I get 80-190 par in post places
Thing is, the zoas came out of the same tank as the water with those same values. The zoas that are still in the other tank thrive at those values.

Traces might be the reason, but there's nothing but zoas, one piece of briareum and one tubiporT musica in that tank, and I have not seen huge growth either yet.


Yeah dipping might be a good idea
 

footgal

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Stubby skirts can usually be solved by simply increasing the flow a little bit, no big deal there. When my zoas are only 1/2 open usually it’s a flow problem or too much light. If both of those are incorrect then I would start inspecting closely to look for pests such as nudis, asterinas. Amphipods, or spiders :)
 
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elysics

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Stubby skirts can usually be solved by simply increasing the flow a little bit, no big deal there. When my zoas are only 1/2 open usually it’s a flow problem or too much light. If both of those are incorrect then I would start inspecting closely to look for pests such as nudis, asterinas. Amphipods, or spiders :)
I have amphipods in both tanks (barely a few in the pico), but in the bigger one when they annoyed or attacked zoas, it was always isolated to one frag or colony, maybe even individual polyps, the issue in the pico is uniform across all polyps and all zoas. Still a likely cause?

Might try reducing light even further then as well, don't have a par meter
 

footgal

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I have amphipods in both tanks (barely a few in the pico), but in the bigger one when they annoyed or attacked zoas, it was always isolated to one frag or colony, maybe even individual polyps, the issue in the pico is uniform across all polyps and all zoas. Still a likely cause?

Might try reducing light even further then as well, don't have a par meter
The amphipods could definitely be an issue here too, a simple wrasse should clean them up if they seem to be the cause. Where are they in the tank? What lights are you running and what settings? We can guess par pretty easily with that info :)
 
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elysics

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The amphipods could definitely be an issue here too, a simple wrasse should clean them up if they seem to be the cause. Where are they in the tank? What lights are you running and what settings? We can guess par pretty easily with that info :)
Both tanks are fish less, at 15g and 3g I don't think there's space for wrasses.

In the pico all zoas are on disks/shallow rock at the bottom, light is a aqua medic qube50 (50 Watt LED) currently tuned down to 27% peak at noon, I'll see if I can get a Screenshot of the profile
 

footgal

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with a tank this shallow, the light should be pretty intense in there. Could it be that maybe since the pico is so small, there could be an imbalance or impurity in the water quality that doesn't really affect the big tank but has more effect here?
 
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elysics

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with a tank this shallow, the light should be pretty intense in there. Could it be that maybe since the pico is so small, there could be an imbalance or impurity in the water quality that doesn't really affect the big tank but has more effect here?
Maybe before the 99% water change but the water currently in it was freshly mixed up

I'll tune down the light some more

But if it was the light, would the zoas still be annoyed when the light is just turning on at barely 10%blue 0% white?
 

jev99

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so what happened since last month? I'm having same issue. I buy new zoa, put it in the tank and the same thing happened... no skirt. I'm thinking maybe it's my salt.. reef crystals. I used to use two little fishes
 
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elysics

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Nothing much, took down the lights further, moved some zoas to other spots in the tiny tank, still not entirely open, but not deteriorating as far as I can tell. Some fire and ice frags I put in the tank are fully open, fake chili, pacman and pink stardust are growing new polyps but always have very short stubby tentacles, the valentines day massacre and armor of god are unchanged, still have half open polyps with retracted tentacles.

I have to say that I don't put very much effort into this tank, besides trying to fix this problem I usually only refill the ato and occasionally sprinkle some spirulina or powdered food in, a drop of iodine of I think of it and that's it
 

jev99

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dang, sucks still not opening fully especially with all those nice zoas.
how is the water? do you see any particles floating? have you taken a turkey baster to the live rock? Is there a lot of debris that comes off when you use the baster?
 
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elysics

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There's barely any debris or particles floating if i didn't just throw food in, which I don't do often. If I pick up a rock, that kicks up a small cloud, but nothing compared to the main tank.

As for salt, I mostly used old water from the other tank, which ran on dupla marin natural balance, did some waterchanges directly with that salt, and recently a waterchange with aquamedic salt

But I don't think it is the salt, as I said in the other tank the zoas don't have this issue
 

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Zoas skirts is related to flow to some degree And also the flavor of Zoa.

I bought some zoas at an LFS and they had really long skirts. In my tank they have short skirts
 

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