Zoa's Dead, Now what?

[LauraD]

Ive been unsuccessful in fighting off a zoa fungus for weeks now. Most of my zoa's are gone. I have a few small colonies left that I cant tell if they are pissed off from my zoa dip (done a week ago) or are also going to die from the fungus. SOme of them have a few open polyps here and there, and some colonies havent openned back up, but they are not dissolving either.
I have lots of questions:

1. Should I leave them in my tank and just wait and see? or is leaving them in the tank just feeding the fungus?

FYI"s
I have a QT tank set up but EVERYTHING that goes into it dies. Right now it has a bunch of rocks in it with zoas dying off.
I started using Lugols Solution drops in the main tank to fight of parasites.
This is a 30 Cube softie tank. My other corals do not seem to be effected.
Except, my yellow sinularia wilted for weeks in the tank until I took it out. This seemed to be the time the fungus started killing my zoas. Can it be related?

2. Is the fungus in the water? How will I know it is gone and can buy new zoas?

3. Can I return the rocks in the QT tank safely to my show tank after a peroxide dip? or am I bringing the fungus back in?

4. Lastly, I have a beautiful clove polyp that looks lovely and uneffected. When I bought it a few months ago it had little tufts of algea on it. I have picked most of it off with a tweezer...it hasnt grown back and it hasnt spread anywhere in the tank. My son is concerned that this coral is hosting the fungus. Can that be? Do corals "host" a fungus and be uneffected by it?
If so, can I dip clove polyps without doing them harm. This is a lovely coral and frankly I dont see why Jason thinks it is the culprit.

Sorry for all the questions. Now that I have accepted losing all my zoa's I am having a difficult time figuring out how to know if my tank is healthy again.
Reef Central hasnt helped me a single bit. Those guys dont answer my posts.

Any advice or guidance you have will be appreciated.
LauraD

 

[wrassefan]

Laura...sorry to hear your problems with the fungus. From your post above, are you dipping the infected corals, rinsing them and putting them into the QT or are you actually dripping the lugol into the tank and leaving it in there? You are suppose to dip the infected pieces in double strength solution for about 10min. and then rinse them with salt water before putting them into the tank. I find this method and decent flow helps most times. HTH. Andy

 

[LauraD]

Andy,
I dipped the infected corals first following MuchoReef Zoa dip receipe on RC.
Then I put them in the QT tank. I guess they were too far gone.
The colonies that didnt seem to be infected were also dipped but then I put them back into the main tank. I did it as a precaution. What happened is that they closed up their polyps and stayed this way for over a week now. a few polyps on some colonies openned up and I must say that more and more seem to be openning as time passes. I am just not sure if they are infected or not. It isnt as obvious as the badly infected ones.
Can i dip and scrub the empty rocks from my QT tank and put them back into my show tank safely?

 

[skyedolphan]

Laura if you see any fungus remaining AT ALL remove ALl polyps around the infection I always go 2-3 polyps in even if they look healthy I remove them while removing them if you encounter any black smellyness to the rock remove them from the rock and reattach to another ditch the whole rock
as for the " healthy " zoas that you dipped with as a precaution mine have been known to stay closed upwards of 4 weeks I had one colony that did not reopen for almost 46 days then it just kinda sprung back to life

 

[LauraD]

Wow Dawn, sounds like their is hope for some of my zoas that have remained closed.
I will be patient with them and maybe they will turn out fine!
Thanks for your reply. Any thoughts on whether I can keep the "dead" zoa rocks after I scrub the zoas off and dip them? Am I risking reinfection?

 

[skyedolphan]

as long as there is no smelly blackness they should be fine I have always placed them back in the tank with no recorrance(sp ) I know )
also always remember zoas as easy as they are they do tend to go thru meltdowns every so often for no apparant reason at least that has ben my experieance in the last 5 yrs with zoas I have had 2 meltdowns for no reason with always 3 or 4 polyps remaining then they seem to come back stronger than ever who knows but the fungus is a B*tch to deal with when all is stable I will bring you some zoas

 

[Rays]

I started using Lugols Solution drops in the main tank to fight of parasites
How many drops were you using, and how often? Lugol's is very potent, every once in a while when the spirit moves me I'll add 2-3 drops to my 55, and that might be a half a dozen times a year.

 

[LauraD]

Dawn, Your awesome! Thanks, I actually feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Rays: I just started using Lugols. According to the directions, I use 2 drops for my 40 gal Cube once per week as a maintenance. I thought I should keep this schedule up atleast until I feel the tank is healthy again.

 

[Rays]

Nope, that doesn't sound like a problem. Good luck, keep us posted.