shrinking zoas

customanimalart · #1 12/26/2007, 11:28 PM

I have a reef that is 1 yr old and I am a zoanthid collector. I have many frags throughout my tank and some I still have been trying to find the best place (home) for them.

But there is something VERY strange happening here... Most of the zoanthids that I place on the right side, or that have been living there for a while, are whithering away. They close and shrink up away. Some then detach from their rock. I have some really pretty pink large palys that when extended are beautiful and were multiplying like wildfire. From 3 palys to ten in a matter of weeks. Now they are withering away. I only have 2 left and they are not very healthy looking.

Any zoanthids that are on the left side of my tank are doing just fine.

I have egg crate on the top of my tanks to keep the fish in, but I get alot of salt spray on the bottom of the light fixture (Nova extreme t-5's) on the right side due to splashing from my skimmer and a koralia pump. Today I scraped a bunch of salt off the acrylic of the light fixture.

Could this be the culprit? I just can't figure out how zoas only on the right side do crappy. Obviously not a water param issue or they would all be looking crappy, right? I just spent 100.00 on zoa frags 2 months ago and certainly don't want to lose them all.

1.025-1.026, 80-81*, Ph 7.9-8.1 (continuous monitoring probe)

I haven't checked calcium or alk lately. My corraline is growing out of control so I guess ca+ is okay.

I also am having an issue with aptasia

and my aptasia killing liquid is not working. I need to get some peppermint shrimp and hopefully get these suckers under control.
They also seem to appear (they just pop-up) near my zoanthids

Could they be doing this?

killingseed · #2 12/27/2007, 12:00 AM

well i would that the peppermint shrimp dont turn on your zoa after you aptasia are gone.

Pufferpunk · #3 12/27/2007, 12:52 AM

You might want to check the Vitamin C thread. Same thing was happening to mine.

Gorgeous dog!

customanimalart · #4 12/27/2007, 03:01 AM

Yeah....I read that the shrimp may eat the zoa polyps.

Pufferpink....Thanks! That shepherd is a pastel portrait I did a few years ago. I wish he was mine!

I also went to the Vit C thread. My tank is 55g with lots of LR/LS and a 4g HOB refugium. I have a Prizm Deluxe Pro skimmer (works better some days than others...sometimes I feel it is pointless to skim with zoanthids) and I also have a phosban reactor that I run carbon through.

Do I keep all these running when dosing Vit C (how much for my tanks?) or turn them off? My refugium al;so has chaeto (out of control growing) and breeding mysids (not sure how I got them).

Will this be okay for the refugium? Where is the best place to add the pill to?

Sorry for all the questions here but the other thread went off into another direction about water chemistry. My favorite thing in the whole wide world. LOL!

Hypertek99 · #5 12/27/2007, 07:22 PM

You said you scraped salt off. Some undissolved salt might have landed on your zoas.

customanimalart · #6 12/27/2007, 07:36 PM

Well, now that I think about it, they began to shrink up before I scraped off the salt. But I am sure that when I did that it did not help them any. Lesson Learned!
I have 3 polyps of them left (from nearly 10/fully and newly formed) so I hope I can save them. I moved them to the center of my sand bed next to my other frags that are doing well, so hopefully they will recover there.