Zoa Pox and Bristleworms

Malenurse · #1 12/14/2007, 06:54 PM

I had a colony of zoas with "zoa pox":

I did the 3 day Furan-2 treatment as described in the article on zoaid.com ( http://www.zoaid.com/articles004.php ). The "pox" seemed unaffected. I placed it in my (well-established) 34 gallon display tank (had been in a newly established 12 gallon) and noticed that large bristle worms (8-10") were all over it immediately (at night). Within 24 hours, the pox disappeared and the colony began to re-open after nearly a month. It's now full recovered.

I posted this on Eric Borneman's forum at marinedepot.com. One of the educated guesses by Eric and another reef guru (since I did nothing to control this "experiment") was that the Furan might have somehow softened the "pox" or uncovered some tissue layers over them, allowing the bristleworms to eradicate them. Other possibilities are: 1.The colony would have recovered without any intervention2.Bristleworms alone might have done this.

Any thoughts or personal experiences?

Chris

sjfishguy · #2 12/14/2007, 07:09 PM

The furan 2 probably does kill the pox and the death of the pox probably kills a small amount of surrounding tissue. The bristleworms were eating the sloughed off stuff, not the pox (think about it, why wouldn't they have eaten the pox sooner then). It normally takes at least 24 hrs for the pox to disappear after treatments.

delsol650 · #3 12/15/2007, 04:48 PM

Ive gotten rid of pox a bunch of times using Furan2, which is why I have a years supply of it.. LOL... but sometimes if you find it late... it dosn't help and the zoo is a gonner..

Malenurse · #4 12/16/2007, 03:50 AM

sjfishguy - I didn't make it clear enough in my original post. The colony I mentioned was in a 12G tank that was relatively newly established and had no large bristleworms. After 3 days of Furan2 treatment, it was moved to my well-established 34 gallon tank containing large (8-12") bristleworms. These are the worms that were all over the infected colony immediately after the Furan2 treatment.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the diagnosis and even the term "zoa pox" has no scientific basis as yet. Even esteemed marine biologists such as Eric Borneman have limited experience and no scientific (yet lots of anectdotal) experience regarding this widely-reported phenomenon.

He would love any information (and better - tissue samples, photos, etc.) that hobbyists like us might be able to provide. You can contact him easily through his forum on marinedepot.com.