dissolving and falling apart, zoanthid

[Rezzan1]

I am new owner of some pink zooanthids that I received from ReeferMadness on friday I dripped acclimated them for two hours and then placed in them in my 20 gallon nano.

The tank has been up since last july
It is lit by 1 150 hqi mh 10 k bulb
Ecosystem hang on filter
20 lbs of lr
another ph for circulation

has one clownfish
cleaner shrimp
feather duster
various shrooms
Dersea Clam
Sacrophyton leather
GSP
Red Sea Xenia
Oarnge Zoos, Green Zoos, Yellow Zoos and palyothoa(I do not spell well)polyps

Parematers r
1.024 salinaty
p.h. 8.3
amonia -
nitrite -
I missing my nitrate test kit??
Phosphates -
Alk 8.4 dkh
Calcium 450

The has been very stable I have not lost one animal in it!
On the edge of the zoos the seem to be disentigrating, I can grab the flesh of zoo that once was and just pull it off. I have only had them for 2 days and I found this today, I was moving them and noticed it. The polyps furthest away from the dissolving ones open but that is it. Can someone help me!!
Sorry about the long post but I thought I should give you all of my info.

[arcab4]

do u see any type of white fungus?

what i would do is frag off the dying polyps so whatever is affecting them wont spread to the ones that are fine as a precaution.

hope that helps a bit..

[Rezzan1]

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jyoakum10/zoo1.JPG

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jyoakum10/zoo2.JPG

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jyoakum10/zoo3.JPG

hopefully this will help me a little bit!


arcab4 can you give me some tips on fraging this one? I might be better off just fraging the pieces that r infected or whatever is going on.

Does this happen often?
Is there a way I can prevent this?

Also I like your zoos alot I think my next zoo purchase will be from you!!:)

[arcab4]

Hi Rezzan1,

thanks for the pictures. totally helped. yup. i've seen that happen to zoos. i believe i posted about this before..lemme find the link...

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=163028

Eric Boerner said it was a type of bacteria that attacks zoos and if not removed, can spread to other colonies.

here's what he suggested doing:

"You can try to combat the problem though. If you have a hospital tank set up, you can give the colony straight iodine baths for 15 minutes a day for a week, and pop it in the hospital tank with fresh salt water and heavy daily iodine doses. Make sure there isn't too much light on the hospital tank (that doesn't mean no lighting). If your hospital tank is a 10 gallon, get 2 shop lamps and throw in 2 35 watt twisted PC bulbs.

Do a complete water change in the tank every week. Keep them in the tank for a month or two, and make sure all the white cheese on them is no longer visible before putting them back in your main tank."

in terms of fragging it...take a flat-head screw-driver and a hammer and break off the piece of rock with the infected zoos. Live rock breaks really easy and from the look of the piece it's on, it should be a piece of cake to break off.

oh yeah..since they look kinda close together, i would take a scapel and slice off the mat first..that way you won't be tearing any zoos apart and expelling their toxin.

hope that helps! =)

johnny

[Rezzan1]

Thanks for your help.
I don't know if it is worth it I looked at them this morning and I have had a rapid recession! I will frag the good ones and hope that they do not come down with it.

Should I let reefer madness know that there colonies have this or is it a isolated incident.

[arcab4]

definately frag what you can b/c from the looks of it..it'll spread to the entire colony if you leave it be. at least this way you can increase the chances of saving them...specially if they are pink zoos cause those are really nice.

i personally have not found out why this happens. usually zoos are pretty tough (had a few in a bucket that sat outside for 2 weeks and were still alive) but i guess even the hardiest (sp?) coral has some kind of weakness.

good luck with it..and let me know how it goes.

[Rezzan1]

I just finished fragging the zoos and I am really suprised at how fast the fungus took over. I took the 5 square inch colony down to a final 1 1/2 inch colony. I took those photos last night and this morning at 8 there were patches of the bacteria all over it.
Before I found out how to deal with the bacteria i sprayed them with a PH thinking it would remove some of the bacteria. I wonder if some of it landed on different parts of the colony.

I contacted Kristine at reefer madness and she gave me a credit on the zoos, evan though we do not know how this bacteria got started.

Thanks again