Hey Everyone,
For the last couple of months or so, my colony of pink ray zooanthids are not looking so great. I've had the colony for 7 months and for the first few months they appeared healthy and full with all polyps open. Lately (the last 2-3 months), many of the polyps throughout the colony do not open regularly and have shrunk in size and the colony is pretty sad looking - some polyps have died, a couple have jumped ship. Interestingly, all the other colonies of zooanthids around the affected one look perfectly fine. I also fragged the pink rays several months ago and the polyps on the frag are perfectly healthy looking and have grown from 2 polyps to about 14. This leads me to believe it's a disease and not a water quality issue (parameters below)
Other than some red cyanobacteria on a couple of the affected polyps, there's no visual sign of disease: no patches of fungus, no evidence of berghia nudibranches or eggs, no sundial snails. And once again, it's not affecting the neighboring colonies. Does anyone have experience with a similar problem with zooanthids? I'm probably just going to throw away the colony since I already have a healthy frag, but if anyone has advice it would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
-Matt
40 gallon
pH 8.2
Salinity: 35 ppt
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: <20 ppm
Phosphate: <0.25 ppm
Calcium: 440 ppm
KH: 11 dKh
For the last couple of months or so, my colony of pink ray zooanthids are not looking so great. I've had the colony for 7 months and for the first few months they appeared healthy and full with all polyps open. Lately (the last 2-3 months), many of the polyps throughout the colony do not open regularly and have shrunk in size and the colony is pretty sad looking - some polyps have died, a couple have jumped ship. Interestingly, all the other colonies of zooanthids around the affected one look perfectly fine. I also fragged the pink rays several months ago and the polyps on the frag are perfectly healthy looking and have grown from 2 polyps to about 14. This leads me to believe it's a disease and not a water quality issue (parameters below)
Other than some red cyanobacteria on a couple of the affected polyps, there's no visual sign of disease: no patches of fungus, no evidence of berghia nudibranches or eggs, no sundial snails. And once again, it's not affecting the neighboring colonies. Does anyone have experience with a similar problem with zooanthids? I'm probably just going to throw away the colony since I already have a healthy frag, but if anyone has advice it would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
-Matt
40 gallon
pH 8.2
Salinity: 35 ppt
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: <20 ppm
Phosphate: <0.25 ppm
Calcium: 440 ppm
KH: 11 dKh