Think I have zoa pox in my tanks.

[Double-O-Zilch]

I've done a little research but would like to see if others on here have a method they trust. It started with my Dragon Eyes. They all closed up one day and never opened again. I tried a FW dip and that didn't work. After two weeks you wouldn't be able to tell I even had a nice colony on the way. Today the rock they were on is bare. Two weeks after that and I have four separate pieces closed up. I really don't want to lose all my zoas, the DEs were a hard enough loss, especially when I was about to frag them for friends and fam. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Link I found and am leaning to so far.

http://www.zoaid.com/articles004.php

[allan]

Dude, about two weeks ago I had an entire colony of palies close up and they've been dwindling ever since. Those really hardy teal pallies that sell a dozen for a quarter.

Sticking around to see what you come up with. Today I found a really large nudibranch on my glass. I thought it may have been him.

[Double-O-Zilch]

I got some pics, bad at that, of something I need to ID. It looks like one of those half shell snails but he's black with white spots and I can't tell if he has a shell or not. Whatever he is, he seems to be eating what's closing the zoas. They opened after he "cruised" over them. At least I hope. I noticed one of my bigger snails going over another closed colony, time will tell what happens there.

[Double-O-Zilch]

Pics of the suspect and some of the affected colonies.

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z174/parkermarsh/100_0698.jpg
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z174/parkermarsh/100_0694.jpg
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z174/parkermarsh/100_0692.jpg
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z174/parkermarsh/100_0696.jpg
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z174/parkermarsh/100_0697.jpg

[Double-O-Zilch]

Don't know why I didn't catch it before and the last pic shows it well. Can algae grow on zoas? Been staring at my tank for hours trying to see a nudi or something move so I can say ah ha, there's the problem! All params are good, ph is always 8.2-8.3. The 14 runs a little hot at 82-84f and the 29 hangs around 80f. Pretty sure the "suspect" is a sail, I saw his bigger brother. Anyone got any ideas before I do something drastic like dump iodine in the tank?

[BIGBIRD123]

You need to dip with Furan II for about 10 mins and use a soft toothbrush to clean the tubes of the polyps.

[Double-O-Zilch]

Hopefully this weekend I can get my hands on some. Seems like stuff goes south when my schedule is packed and funds are low. I got Giau's old QT tank, need to get it running and put all affected pieces in there. One problem I might have is my pistol shrimp is in one of the rocks and I don't want to kill him, been watching him grow bigger for months. Think he'll make it through a dip?

[stoneroller]

There are some easier measures to try first. Try blasting them with a strong current from a turkey baster or powerhead. Some zoas close up due to irritants and this will "clean" them up a bit. Also a short dip in freshwater and iodine may help but sickly polyps may not pull through harsh dips.

There are many pests that eat zoanthids. Look for them at night with a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

Snails that eat zoas are called sundials, they look like thishttp://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r10/stoneroller/9630026d.jpg

[stoneroller]

PS. I'd bet a bunch of frags, that no nudis are able to consume the protopalys mentioned by Allan, those dudes are very toxic.

Like these at the top...
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z174/parkermarsh/100_0696.jpg

[Double-O-Zilch]

Thanks for the reply stoneroller. The snails in question are more like stomatellas if not stomatellas. I hope they are good like the beige ones because they camoflauge real well with my background as you can see. I went in search of Furan 2 but came up with Lugol's instead. Some have started coming around but the one in the last pic that looks like it has a yellow film over it is still in bad shape. I will try a dip as well as setting up a 10g for quarantine. I'm going to use water from my tanks, brand new crushed coral and seeding it with all the little critters I can round up. How long should I wait to transfer any affected corals into it? No sense in trying to save them only to doom them.

Edit*
Forgot to add the first line of defense is blastin' with the baster. Several times over several days had no effect.

[Double-O-Zilch]

I did the Lugol's dip using RO/DI water. They still seem mad at me but time will tell if they come back around or not. The dip did have an immediate effect on some flat worms that were hanging out on my purple shroom, he's still mad too!

Edit* I thought the Lugol's killed the flat worms but it in fact did not, they just shriveled up like the shroom.

[NateDogg]

I have had this same type of experience.. in my tank it "killed off" an entire group of green zoas that were surrounded by orange zoas. The orange zoas were never affected. Interestingly enough, a month later, the zoas I thought had died began to come back. My whammin' watermelons are going through the same thing right now as well. I am of the mindset that you help them as much as possible (dips, cleaning with high flow) and hope for the best. Sometimes nature is very random:).

[Double-O-Zilch]

In my case Nate the culprit seems to be going for the better zoas and working its way down. My Dragon eyes never did come back.