Can zoos be moved?

[dileggi]

I have a multi centered zoo. I'm not sure of it's placement in the tank, but I have had it in the same spot for one week now. Will I cause problems to it if I were to move it?

Also, should the zoos be placed on the live rock, or on the live sand bed? What is considered best?

Thanks!

[MUCHO REEF]

Moving your zoas will not cause a problem, where you move them might. Try not to move them near stinging corals, this will cause them to retract/die. Make sure the move affords them ample opportunity for light and current, both of which are essential. Zoas and Palys are photosynthetic corals which thrive and prosper much better with light than without it. If your polyps are on the substrate, I wouldn't move them directly to the top of your tank. In a weeks time already, they have already acclimated to the level of light they are receiving. This is evident by how well they are doing. Moving them from top to bottom in an instant, can possibly result in light shock. This can possibly result in bleaching or persistent retraction. If there's not a real reason to move them, I probably wouldn't, if you have to, this is what I do. I make the moves incrementally, up 2 or 3 inches and over 2 or 3 inches. Constant moving is bad as it will result in stunted growth. I recently fragged some neon orange and lime zoanthids and placed them on 5 rocks, 4 polyps each. I placed them high as that is where they were before I fragged them. I've been under the weather lately and hadn't checked them in weeks. Yesterday, I counted 20 to 25 polyps on each rock. If I had placed these frags 18 inches lower and moved them a few times, and I know this from many years experience, I wouldn't have received the measured growth I did in 6 weeks.

Moving them is fine, just make it a permanent move if you can. Best of luck my friend.

Mucho Reef

[dileggi]

Thanks for the info Mucho. I'm not 100% sure if it is doing well where it is. Everything seemed fine with them until about 8pm or last night. When I checked, it was partially retracted when my lights were still on. I've never noticed them retracted while the lights were on before. Today, they seem to be a bit more out than they were last night, but not all of the polyps are out, as they were before last night. I noticed some green algae growing near them on a rock, and I was going to move them because I thought this was the reason for it.

As for stinging corals, I'm not sure because I'm a real newbie at this. All I have, besides the multi-centered polyp, is a button polyp and green star polyp. All 3 are very small, and all 3 purchased last weekend.

Is it normal for some of the polyp's to be retracted? If so, I'll just leave it where it's at.

Thanks in advance again.

[kraze3]

My corals will close up or half close up if a fish swims by too close. hermits and snails bumping into them can cause this too. Sometimes I see some closed and there doesnt seem to be any reason at all. As long as they arent closed 24/7 you should be fine.

[MUCHO REEF]

"Is it normal for some of the polyp's to be retracted? "

Well, yes and no. Zoas and palys can be very temperamental at times. Often we think we have a predator or hoist within the colony and we run to prepare a dip. Not always the case nor the proper response, here's why. Polyps will periodically retract for several days to sometimes 2 weeks, it's true. It is a means they use to clean themselves externally and it is perfectly normal. I have a couple colonies in my tank, like clockwork, will retract for a few days every couple of months. It recently happened for the first time with one of my favorite zoanthid colonies. My buddy told me that they needed to be dipped quickly, I told him, "not so fast". I knew that I hadn't added anything new in well over a month, if there was a predator, it would have manifested itself already, so it wasn't a predator. As a matter of fact, I hadn't added any new, fish, inverts, corals etc. I saw no signs of BI or fungus, leaving me with the simple deduction that they were simply cleaning themselves. Sure enough, 12 days later, they sprung back open.

If you have some retraction here and there or periodically, the reasons could be as I stated above, or, a simple group of pods could have irritated them enough to close for a few minutes, this is also very normal. Small snails or small crabs crawling by or around the polyps will cause them to retract, a blast of current or even excessive lighting can cause retraction. A parameter that is way off will cause retraction, there are literally numerous reason why. The key is daily observation and getting to know how certain colonies react and keep a log of which ones and how often they retract. This can greatly aid you with potentially unnecessary dipping.

I'm sure I have confused you by now, LOL, but small periodic retractions for a very short term are normal, if it goes beyond a couple of days and you just want to play it safe, remove the colony along with a gallon of tank water. Invert the colony face down in the tank water outside of your tank in preferably a white bucket and swoosh it back and forth in a clockwise to counter clockwise twist for 30 seconds, then place it back in its original place. The white bucket will highlight possible hoist or predators which may have been the culprits. Always run your actinics only when you have remove a colony for any reason, surgery, treatment, dipping, salt water swoosh etc.

BTW, forgot to add this, persistent retraction isn't normal.

If you always have colonies or polyps retracted, this is not normal.

The best thing to do is pose the concern here in this forum along with as much detailed information as possible, detailed description, coloration, pinching, detaching etc, and someone in this forum will be sure to help you. Post every parameter you can which will also help.

Here's a link that might be of some future assistance to you.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1154238

Keep us posted and I hope this helps.

Mucho Reef

[dileggi]

Thanks again Mucho and Kraze. Shortly after my last post on this thread, I noticed that the colony was 100%, but again retracted when my lights went out. So, hopefully I am ok. As for parameters, this is what I have:

PH 8.2
Amonia 0
N02 0
N03 5-10
Salt 1.023 / 32
Calcium 420
dKh 9
Temp 78.6 - 80.1
White lights running for 12 hours
Blues come on one hour before whites and go off one hour after whites.
Tank consists of the following:
3 Turbo snails
5 Nassarius snails
5 Blue legged hermits
2 Blue Chromis
2 Ocellaris Clowns - tank raised
1 small green star polyp
1 small button polyp
1 small multi colored center zoa.

I'm not sure how small the poly's and zoa's are, but I paid $20 each at a local LFS.

Maybe one of my snails got too close, or one of the hermits. I also know that my scheduled bi-weekly water change is due for tomorrow as well. Maybe that could've caused it to retract....2 week water in the tank? Although, my water parameters still tested great.

My snails and crabs have been in the tank since the beginning of October. My 4 fish since mid October. My Zoa's and Poly's for one week.

the tank is a bio cube 29, with 27 lb of live rock and 30 lb of live sand. The tank has been running since the end of Sept.

I hope this was enough info because I don't know anything else! LOL!

[LockeOak]

If it helps you relax, it's pretty hard to kill zoanthids. So long as you don't have any parasites on them you almost have to try to kill them.