Zoa problems lately

[stingythingy45]

As of lately some of my zoas seem to be closing and,well rotting.I pulled out a frag plug this weekend and plucked like 4-5 small asternia stars off the polyps.
I also noticed that a few recently fragged palys had closed and look to be on there way out.
Questions:

Could 2-250 watt halide lamps be too much for zoas on the sandbed of my 90 gallon?Should I look into tucking them in under some shade?

Are the zoas dying before the asternia stars move in,or are they preditors?
I'm beginning to think they lead to the downfall.There are hundreds in my tank.

MY parameters:I check with both Salifert and API weekly(Calcium and Alk)

Alk :7 dkh(this has been dipping down to 6.5 dkh on occasion)
Temp :75 deg (tank ran at close to 79 all summer) no big swings
Calcium:450 ppm
Mg.: 1350 ppm
S.G.:1.025(auto top off)
PO3: 0
PO4: 0

Many other palys and common yellow zoas appear to be fine.All other corals look good.Clam is doing well,acros,monticap,leathers,pipeorgan,frogspawn.

 

[jayman10134]

i recently had the same thing happen. a large colony of polyps just started dying off for no reason. they have been in the tank for about a year and have been in the same spot the whole time. i do not have a asternia starfish problem though. to solve your problem though bob you could just throw in a harlequin shrimp and they will be gone in no time.

 

[pvh]

Welcome to the frustration of keeping higher end zoas / palys.

 

[jayman10134]

the thing is with mine, they are super low end boring brown zoas that made it through small ammonia spikes and now are just dying off for no apparent reason.

 

[stingythingy45]

i recently had the same thing happen. a large colony of polyps just started dying off for no reason. they have been in the tank for about a year and have been in the same spot the whole time. i do not have a asternia starfish problem though. to solve your problem though bob you could just throw in a harlequin shrimp and they will be gone in no time.

I'm thinking about do just that,getting a harlequin.It's crazy,the orange palys seem to do fine.I just got some RPE's a few weeks ago and they're doing fine,even thriving.
I have yellow zoas that are growing like poopy piles under a monkey infested banana tree.
But here and there,and a few palys I fragged(that were doing great after fragging)are closed as tight as a bulls butt.

Welcome to the frustration of keeping higher end zoas / palys.

It must drive you nuts when some zoas just close and never open again,Peter.
And right next to it is a different colony thriving.
I had a small colony of orange spotted zoas.Just like this in a week.
6 polyps...5....4...2....none left.And they were in there for week prior doing just fine.
I don't have an emerald crab to blame either.

 

[jayman10134]

I'm thinking about do just that,getting a harlequin.It's crazy,the orange palys seem to do fine.I just got some RPE's a few weeks ago and they're doing fine,even thriving.
I have yellow zoas that are growing like poopy piles under a monkey infested banana tree.
But here and there,and a few palys I fragged(that were doing great after fragging)are closed as tight as a bulls butt.



It must drive you nuts when some zoas just close and never open again,Peter.
And right next to it is a different colony thriving.
I had a small colony of orange spotted zoas.Just like this in a week.
6 polyps...5....4...2....none left.And they were in there for week prior doing just fine.
I don't have an emerald crab to blame either.

first of all i comment you on your amazing comparisons like bulls butts and poopy piles. second, i have that too, i bought a whole plug covered in eagle eyes, and i was losing 5 polyps a day, they were just missing. then all of a sudden lately the remaining polyps opened and are doing much better, and the dying has stopped. no rhyme or reason to their problems. i didn't change anything in the tank. zoanthids are so frustrating!

 

[stingythingy45]

first of all i comment you on your amazing comparisons like bulls butts and poopy piles. second, i have that too, i bought a whole plug covered in eagle eyes, and i was losing 5 polyps a day, they were just missing. then all of a sudden lately the remaining polyps opened and are doing much better, and the dying has stopped. no rhyme or reason to their problems. i didn't change anything in the tank. zoanthids are so frustrating!

Figured it might get a laugh, as it's Monday.
"no rhyme or reason to their problems"
That's really the frustrating part.How can one learn from mistakes when you have no idea why it happened in the first place?
I'm beginning to think some zoas are 50%-50% survival rate in our tanks.
You put the frag in,hope it survives.
Then it does fine for weeks,not growing new polyps,but opening up nicely every day.
Then it begins to multiply........hooray!
Then a month later,things start to look bad,or begin disappearing.
So you might move it,dose some iodine,water change
none of the above.
It dies........
Then you think to yourself"what did I do?".Maybe moved it and shouldn't have???
So the next time you don't move it,or do a water change...ect...ect.
Still dies........

 

[jayman10134]

haha, yeah i am getting a huge colony of blue steel zoanthids in a few days which i guess are incredibly hard to keep, so i guess we will see how it goes. if they die i might have to get out of this incredibly expensive hobby and go back to piling up money in my backyard and burning it to roast marshmallows on.

 

[KSC]

I just think some zoas are "annuals".

 

[jayman10134]

thats a good way to look at it i guess. what do you think about when i get the colony i frag it into 2 pieces and put one in each of my reef tanks. do you think i can avoid them both crashing at the same time by doing that?

 

[stingythingy45]

thats a good way to look at it i guess. what do you think about when i get the colony i frag it into 2 pieces and put one in each of my reef tanks. do you think i can avoid them both crashing at the same time by doing that?

The one that's dying will probably send out bad vibes to the other colony,so they can both die in unison.

 

[RayD]

Welcome to the frustration of keeping higher end zoas / palys.

Why is it that the "high end" Zoas and Palys always melt and the more common cheapy ones grow and take over the tank! LOL

This is one of the reasons I gave up on high end Zoas/Palys.

 

[Takara]

Why is it that the "high end" Zoas and Palys always melt and the more common cheapy ones grow and take over the tank! LOL

This is one of the reasons I gave up on high end Zoas/Palys.

I lost all but one yellow colony, and all of these brown with gold centers, no reason at all, wtf! Those were suppose to be easy to keep and grow out!

 

[pvh]

I can't tell you how much high end zoas/palys I've lost. Not trying to make this a pricing thread about high end or low end stuffs but that's one of the reason why some are pricey than others. It's because they are so hard to keep alive.

 

[stingythingy45]

I lost all but one yellow colony, and all of these brown with gold centers, no reason at all, wtf! Those were suppose to be easy to keep and grow out!

I have hundreds of those.They seem to like the halides and thrive.
It's those pesky,Atlantic reds,fancy pink zoas,spotted orange(fire and Ice) stuff like that bite the substrate.
Basically,if it's over $8 a polyp,it's doomed.lol

 

[stingythingy45]

And you know what's wierd?Not more than 8-10 inches from the area that has the zoas and palys that look bad is a frag plug covered in tubes blues that are thriving.

 

[stingythingy45]

I think the first thing I'm going to do is scrape the glass clean off all yellow colonial polyps.They were fun while it lasted,but they know way too much about colonization.
I also have a big like 12 head frogspawn in that area.Never seen any sweeper tentacles that can reach corals,but that needs a fragging.

 

[GaryDN]

funny I too am having a zoa die off an my tank is being over run with asternia starfish, i just threw in a harlequin shrimp (second one first went mia) I am betting it the star's because they are every where. Then again only time will tell

 

[stingythingy45]

funny I too am having a zoa die off an my tank is being over run with asternia starfish, i just threw in a harlequin shrimp (second one first went mia) I am betting it the star's because they are every where. Then again only time will tell

Finally,somebody that feels my pain.
I'm afraid the CBS will chase and eat the harlequin.

 

[Crib]

IMO
asternia starfish have in the past ate my zoos.
What I did was dip all zoos in iodine and tank water.
Maybe even a fresh water dip. I used ro/di water
Amazing what was nesting in there::