Zoa Problems

[AdamS]

I am having a problem (i think) with my some of my zoas. I do not feed them anything and I think that might be the problem, here is why:

I have 5 small colonies, from 3 different sources. They all looked great when i got them all between 1-3 months ago. Now the watermelons and purple with green skirt (dont know name) dont look as good.  The watermelons gree like crazy the first 2 weeks and have since just really spread out an now the polyps dont open near as much, and they are losing some colour. They have not moved since i put them in. The purple zoas are losing colour as well, but only the ones that point up towards the light, not on the bottom of the rock. The other three colonies look fine. All colonies are 4" from the bottom 6" apart from one another in my 18" deep 75G.  I am thinking that based on placement, these two colonies are not getting enough flow and hence not enough food, or possibly enough flow, but still not enough food.

Here is my setup
75G with 20g sump and in sump marine sources skimmer that works well. I run a filter sock about 50% of the time, usually after a water change, which is 5G once a week.
My SG is pretty solid at 1.024 and alk goes from about 8.7 to 9.2 and calc from 410-440, mg is around 1280. I do not measure phosphates and have not checked nitrates in a long time cause when i did i would always get as close to zero as i could measure. I have 4x 54w t5ho lamps that runnfor about 6 hours a day. I have a very shallow sand bed (just covers bottom glass). I have prob 75-100lbs of rock in the DT. I also have a small montipora dig. Frag that darryl gave to to try that is growing like crazy. Oh temp is 79 or 80 all the time. I think thats everything.

What do you guys /gals think? What should i feed if that is problem?

Adam

 

[xxmurrxx]

I don't think they require direct feeding, I have never fed any of mine.

I would guess they just don't like the placement in the tank (light / flow)

Or you have something in the tank bothering them.

I had a colony of them not doing so hot because I had them atop of my rocks, once I moved them down they got bigger and brighter.

 

[reeffreak]

Ya move them lower in the tank with less flow, also I always take my colonies or drags and stick them in front of a power head for a second to blow out any debris that collect up between polyps, this will help growths noticed for me anyways

 

[AdamS]

Hmm, might be tough as they started growing on the rocks, and they are only 3" maybe 4 off the bottom as it is. My wife may suggest 3" would make a world of difference, but will it?

 

[Neopimp]

It's really surprising how fast light levels drop off

 

[Duke]

I doubt light is your issue, I have the same zoos In both low light/low flow and extremely high lighting/high flow and hands down the high light/high flow are doing 10x as good, and also have much more color.

heres photos of the ones that are sitting in high light/flow (500+ PAR)

 

[Salty Cracker]

I've always considered zoas in with palys...sort of a pest species (even though I love them).  It definitely doesn't take much to keep those things alive and thriving. 
You need:
Regular water changes
Good lighting (For me placement has never been an issue, they're not really sensitive to bright light, but don't like poor light)
Parameters correct

If the above are good (and be honest, if your bulbs are 8 months old, they're not good) then look to the following


No slime/algae/dinos etc bothering them.

Lastly, you might have predators, something that is chewing on them.  Check for flatworms, tiny ones will just nibble at them at first.  Or look for a crab that nips them.  When they're hurt, they won't open, and sometimes the whole colony can stay closed. If it's just one colony, it might be something like that, if it's all the colonies in the tank, then its a global issue not an isolated one. 

 

[Darryl_V]

I find my zoas do better under higher flow and pretty string light...they do great on the bottom of my sps tank but not as well on the bottom of my lps tank.

 

[AdamS]

Based on what everyone is saying, im thinking flow is the issue. They are hiding a bit between 2 rocks. I have a nano powerhead, maybe i will hook it up and shoot it at them for a couple of weeks. Although low flow means low food for a filter feeder, no?

Salty, my lights are are only 4 months old and only on 4-6 hours a day. Pests may be the issue, not crabs as i just added my first ones recently and this has been a slow process. I will snap some shots if i can tonight.

 

[Duke]

Based on what everyone is saying, im thinking flow is the issue. They are hiding a bit between 2 rocks. I have a nano powerhead, maybe i will hook it up and shoot it at them for a couple of weeks. Although low flow means low food for a filter feeder, no?

Salty, my lights are are only 4 months old and only on 4-6 hours a day. Pests may be the issue, not crabs as i just added my first ones recently and this has been a slow process. I will snap some shots if i can tonight.

I associate low flow with low availability of food and higher flow with higher availability of food, although I really don't know if that's correct or not.

 

[AdamS]

Here is a pic of the colonies. The dragon eyes are for reference with respect to location. I am going to start with flow, see if that helps. If you look at the purple zoas you can see the polyps without light have better colour...

 

[harleymike]

I'm just a newbie. Still learning. But was wondering why only 4 to 6 hours for the lighting.
Maybe lights need too be on longer.

 

[AdamS]

That wasnt duke, that was me with the 4-6 hours. And the reason is that i have 1 sps, 1 xenia and 5 zoa colonies. If i keep the lights on longer, i grow lots ans lots of algae and just a little bit of coral, and my hydro bill goes up. Once i have more coral, i will leave lights on more.

 

[harleymike]

LOL. sorry was talking too my wife about something else, and typed his name by accident.

 

[Duke]

looking at your pictures I think I know the problem, there are sponges on all those zoa frags, I had the same thing happen to some of mine, the sponges seemed to be doing so good they were taking over the zoo's, after reading a bunch online I didn't really find anything that helped except that sponges are really sensitive to air, so what I ended up doing was taking the zoas out of the tank and sitting them out of water for 15 minutes, then I just shook in some tank water and tossed them back in.. the next day everything was back to normal. check it out, do you think it could be sponges?

 

[AdamS]

Sponges are numerous in my sump, and have been know  to be in the display, but i honestly dont see any on the zoas... Maybe i dont know what im looking at.

 

[Duke]

I have a lot of sponges too, the only ones giving me problems were on zoa frags, the white area on the bottom of the green zoas, what is that? and the last photo the semi translucent white area dead smack in the middle of the photo, what is that? even in the first picture it looks like it could be there too.. or is it all just flesh of the zoa's, another thing that probably doesn't have much to do with the zoa health is your tank doesn't have low nitrates and phosphates if you cant run your lights more than 4 hours a day without getting massive algae growth, its already looking like theres a fair amount of algae in there as it is. you should test your nitrates and phosphates when u get some time.

 

[reeffreak]

I would agree with duke about the sponges , also having lights on 4 hours a day will not do a thing for your coral. Might as well keep them turned off 24 hours a day then. The answer to the algae isn't 4 hour light cycle but water changes and Gfo maybe some carbon.

 

[AdamS]

Ok ok, algae is not really that big of a problem, im just being cheap about it. The digi that Darryl gave me is about 40% bigger in about a month, so it must be at least enough light. I know about my likely phosphate problem but really dont want to measure at this point cause then i will have to seriously address it, and for the time being i just want to manage it. Gfo is inevitable, i just dont want to undertake that project yet.

 

[Duke]

seems hard to believe a digi doubled in size in a month for anyone let alone under 4 hrs of light in a tank with horrible parameters.. IMO from the pictures you posted its hard to tell, but im still going with sponges growing together with your zoos, as I just went through this exact thing. Re reading your thread theres still more than a few explainations possible, You basically said you have a tank that gets full of algae if you run your lights on a normal cycle, that's not good. You aren't testing your water parameters, that's not good. Your lighting is only running 4hrs a day, that's not good. You know your not doing what is needed to keep a healthy tank, that's not good. Lastly you have no intentions of addressing any of that right now.. That's really not good. IMO it wouldn't hurt anything to pull those zoas and let them get some air for a few minutes, if it is sponges they will be dead and your zoos can go back to normal. if its not sponges, you can likely attest how they aren't doing good with any one of your other issues that you have.