Zoas keep dying.

[odie]

I have a 24 AP(aqua pod) with the stock pc lights. (64watts if I recall). Parameters are in check ph does drop down to 7.6-7.8 if I dont do my weekly water change.

Anyway I have had zoa frags of 30 plus and small frags of 5-6 polyps and they slowly melt away. I have some as old as 5 months that had full 15 heads or so and now have 6-7 polyps that are not opened up fully etc.

I recently got a frag 6 weeks ago and it was sitting in the gravel. Grew a few heads etc. moved it to a rock closer to the light and it started to close up and never open. I moved it up 4 inches.

Now I have palys growing like crazy, frogspawn, hammer, monticap (up top), a birdnest (up top) that have been growing like crazy. Kenya tree I am trimming back, gsp etc. All doing well but the zoas.

Zoas are my favorite and the SPS were just an experiment on what I can keep with PC lights while I am building my 125 with MH. But the experiment is doing better than the zoas.

Now I have some purigen and chemi pure in the back of the filter area. Prior to that I think the zoas were doing better. Coincident?? Ideas?

[salty65gal]

Most zoas don't like or need very clean water. Do you target feed them? Do you have any pests? Asterina stars, nudibranches, sundial snails or zoa spiders? There are a lot of things that can irritate them. If they were doing good on the sand I would move them back. I don't think that moving them 4 inches up would affect them with only pc lighting. Amphipods, aiptasia and majano's can irritate them... There have been some zoa frags that no matter what I tried I could not get to grow. Some would stay the same size and others would slowly die off. Good luck with them!

[ChilisREasy]

that PH is deadly get it to 8.0 - 8.4

[ckusnierek]

What fish do you have?
List them all


I would say the PH is getting dangerously low but not deadly...
Mine quite often gets as low as 7.7/7.8

[odie]

ok the low PH is when it was ever at the lowest and that was without a water change for 3 weeks. I dont run a skimmer just alot of live rock.

It is normally above 8.0 when tested.

As far as fish goes I just have a pair of ocellaris clowns.

[Hop]

Check religiously for nudis and spiders. If you rule that option out, try dosing about 2-300 mg of vitamin c every other day. I just use the bulk vit c tablets from the pharmacy. I noticed a huge improvement of my zoa within the first week of dosing.

[odie]

I have never seen a nudi or spider before so I will look as closely as I can. Anything to aid in this other than patients?

As far as dosing with vitamin C what amount per gallon? This is a smaller tank (24 gallon with 40#'s of rock). Also wont that lower the ph? Citric acid etc.

[ckusnierek]

The nudis can chane coor to look liek the zoanthid they are eating....

Check after the lights go out with a red led light. (red led works the best)

[Hop]

Originally Posted by odie

I have never seen a nudi or spider before so I will look as closely as I can. Anything to aid in this other than patients?

As far as dosing with vitamin C what amount per gallon? This is a smaller tank (24 gallon with 40#'s of rock). Also wont that lower the ph? Citric acid etc.

I use a blue LED light at night and the nudis appear to stand out more and I'll suck them out with a turkey baster. I also have a couple colonies that I can remove and I'll do a TMPCC dip. I have not seen one in about 4 months, so I hope this combined with the addition of a wrasse has worked.

The vit c, I gave you a safe dosing amount for your tank. I dose 2000mg every other day. The pH seems to stay where it is, but my ORP does drop to about 200 for a few hours after dosing.

[odie]

hey thanx for doing a dosage conversion for me!! I will look tonight under blue led as that is all I have other than a white led flashlight. I pulled a frag off a rock put in on the sand and it looks much better. Not sure why!

Do nudi's not like to crawl on sand??

also what is a good wrasse? Would a sixline work?

[aquawolf]

Sixlines are a 50/50 fish where some are fine in a tank and others will terrorize all of your fish. You may be better off looking for a yellow canary wrasse as they are peaceful and excellent pest hunters.

[JPRZ4U]

I would say if you look very close, it might even take a couple days to locate but I have a feeling you will find a pest.

[aquawolf]

Any update on the condition of the zoas?

[odie]

sorry for the delay. I was camping for 9 days!!

I just started the vitamin C dosing last night. I did look for nudis and spiders and never found any. At night I did see what looked like larger grains of sand on them. the zoas were all closed up. Type of snail?

[aquawolf]

Larger grains of sand? Is there any way you can pull the zoas out at night to get a closer look at whatever that is?