Help Zoas in distress

[Cammed_02]

Today I notied half my colony of zoas are starting to close an shrivel up. I didnt notice any bugs, worms, snails, around causing them to close. Anyone have any advice? Maybe dip in a water and peroxide bath? Leave them alone?

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj160/robt34/2012-01-10204827.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj160/robt34/2012-01-10204758.jpg

[Regric25]

HEY! Are those mounted to a clear plug? Didnt you get those from me?

[Cammed_02]

No, I got them from another member here about a month ago, and up to this point they were doing great. I think its zoa pox, there is white residue around the polyps.

[350gt]

Is that a snail in the lower part of the pic??....

How long have they been closed?

[Regric25]

Interesting I sold a frag exactly like that with the watermellons and the dark looking ones mixed in to someone back in March when I sold my tank. I hope it bounces back. I'm not sure if its zoa pox but I DO know that sometimes zoas and palys do that i have some that closed up for 2 weeks and they all of a sudden opened up and were all good.

[Cammed_02]

Is that a snail in the lower part of the pic??....

How long have they been closed?

Believe it or not that's a monti frag that came with the rock. They have slowly progressively been closing up over the past 2 days.


Interesting I sold a frag exactly like that with the watermellons and the dark looking ones mixed in to someone back in March when I sold my tank. I hope it bounces back. I'm not sure if its zoa pox but I DO know that sometimes zoas and palys do that i have some that closed up for 2 weeks and they all of a sudden opened up and were all good.

Some of my frags have done this before too, just never an entire colony. It may be a reaction to the bulb change I just did. I recently switched from a 10k MH bulb to a phoenix 14k.

[350gt]

What is that in the middle of the second pic? Looks almost like tentacles reaching up.

[Europhyllia]

What is that in the middle of the second pic? Looks almost like tentacles reaching up.
aiptasia?

[Cammed_02]

Yup my one pep shrimp went missing on me and a few aiptasia have started yo show up. Gotta stop by lfs and pick up a few tomorrow

[350gt]

Thats what it looked like but was on phone earlier and wasnt too sure. I am not sure about this either, but could that be upsetting your zoas?

[SoLiD]

Hello to all of my awesome "new" reefers... :bigsmile: :angel:

The first thing I'd do is pull the rock out and inspect it for nasties and pests. Try a lugols or another type of pest dip. Then swish it around in a bucket of old tank water to see if anything bad falls off.

Then Read This...

Vitamin C Dosing (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1602494)

[Cammed_02]

Thats what it looked like but was on phone earlier and wasnt too sure. I am not sure about this either, but could that be upsetting your zoas?

maybe, either way im gonna pick up a few shrimp today to at least eliminate that problem.

Hello to all of my awesome "new" reefers... :bigsmile: :angel:

The first thing I'd do is pull the rock out and inspect it for nasties and pests. Try a lugols or another type of pest dip. Then swish it around in a bucket of old tank water to see if anything bad falls off.

Then Read This...

Vitamin C Dosing (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1602494)

Thanks, ill wait till this evening and if they don't better ill pull them.

[Sherita]

Zoas can be a bit troubling, sometimes it's hard to figure out why they are mad. When I have a colony closing for no obvious reason, the first thing I do is a peroxide dip using 70% tank water and 30% h202, see if anything comes off of them. If they still don't respond in a couple of days, I will then try a lugols dip. If you think you have zoa pox, treat asap using Furan2. Zoa pox is pretty distinctive, white "pox" will show up on the polyps, and will spread through the colony slowly until it kills the entire colony. Check on zoaid.com for the dosages for treatment with Furan2 for zoapox. If you see white pox, I would treat immediately for zoa pox before it spreads to any other colonies you have. They won't die overnight, but it will kill them if left untreated.

Other things that can irritate zoas - aiptasia (not always), isopods (some people say they don't, but I have seen it with my own eyes), certain snails, zoa spiders (you will get these with the peroxide dip, they can't stand it). Do you have anything in the tank that might be bugging them......fish/crabs? I just evicted my last peppermint shrimp for hassling my polyps, jerk.

And realize, sometimes zoas are just weird and will close up for no reason at all. There is no reasoning with them.

[Cammed_02]

I haven't noticed any bugs at all and no crabs or shrimp in the tank yet. Ill probably start with the h2o2 dip and go from there. I know zoas can be finicky so that's why I don't want to take too extreme measures quite yet. They could just be playing possum

[allan]

I've had the orange zoas close up for a couple days, finally tracked it down. It only happened when i overdosed on kalkwasser. I've not seen them close in over a year, but I've also settled into a routine that they agree with.

It wouldn't affect any of my other zoas, just the orange ones.

[Europhyllia]

the first thing I do is a peroxide dip using 70% tank water and 30% h202,

So do you use 30% hydrogen peroxide solution or 30% of your hydrogen peroxide solution. In which case what percentage hydrogen peroxide are you using?
(the grocery store kind usually is around 3% peroxide, beauty supply peroxide comes in 6%, 9% and 12%)

[Sherita]

Karin, you are making my head hurt :bigsmile:

I use the 3% stuff from the local wally world/drugstore. I have heard of others using the stronger stuff, but never needed it since what I do has been working great for me.

[Regric25]

You know I tried the H2O2 and saltwater mix to kill off some algae that was growing on some palys and WOW I was suprised how well it worked! I did the same ratio Sherita stated above for about 5 minutes and rinsed it off with some clean tank water and put it back in the bowl. They were not happy at first and the bubbles were under the skin of the palys but after about 24 hrs they looked good as new and algae free. Ill be definatley doing this in the future.

Was not aware until now it could be used as a way to get rid of annoying critters.

[Cammed_02]

You know I tried the H2O2 and saltwater mix to kill off some algae that was growing on some palys and WOW I was suprised how well it worked! I did the same ratio Sherita stated above for about 5 minutes and rinsed it off with some clean tank water and put it back in the bowl. They were not happy at first and the bubbles were under the skin of the palys but after about 24 hrs they looked good as new and algae free. Ill be definatley doing this in the future.

Was not aware until now it could be used as a way to get rid of annoying critters.


This is the only thing I could think of to do, I know when I dipped a couple frags last time the HA just fell right off and the frags were really clean. If the colony dosen't look better by this evening I'll give it a shot.