What should I do with this zoa?
 

Hey,
I bought it and it was beautiful. Fully opened and was growing over the frag. However, 3 days after it entered my tank, it closed up and never reopened. Any ideas why?
Ren

I had a drag of zoas close for 2 weeks before opening up. After that they grew like crazy. I'd probably give it a bit more time. As long as it's not melting

+1 on wait (if it's not melting)...

Possibly blast it with a little bit of mysis or cyclop-eeze to see if it will peek out (or at least change enough to be confident it's just ****ed off and not dieing)

Have you tried moving it to another location in the tank? I actually compare zoas more to SPS in behaviour than I do other soft corals. Yes, some zoos will grow damn near anywhere but others are super picky about lighting and flow. I have a some zoas that hate the high flow and light of my tank and had to move them accordingly. I have others than literally need to be next to my SPS to open up and be happy.

Some zoas really don't like being moved to another tank (another SPS quality). They'll close up for a few days to weeks until they feel safe again. Like mentioned before: if they're not melting away, just wait. But do consider where you have them placed. They might not be in an ideal location.

Scuba: I've moved them 3 times already in the past 6 weeks. No matter where I put them, they don't open and I wait at least a week to 10 days before moving.
Ren

Zoas are like that. I had one that didn't open up properly for like months and is now showing some faces. You might want to check for zoa eating nudibranch just in case. Zoas come from wide variety of places at wide variety of conditions so unless you are particularly sure about it, you will have to experiment with its position (but not too often; maybe once a week...not sure about the number).

I presume you got an aussie zoa over there? They are particularly very picky about acclimating to the tank and their location.

I agree with most of this post, if you would like to link your reference for Aussie zoas melting easier I would love to read it? I would also love to know which Zoa species are obligate Aussies?

How did you go about adding it to the tank and what are your parameters? Although zoas will stay closed for extended periods of time a swap from good water to good water won't cause it.





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I don't know about the melting issue or which particular ones are from aussie. But till now, I had two aussie zoas (the seller told me ofcourse :P), one rainbow and the other one dont know. The rainbow melted within few days and the other one actually took over a month of adjustment.

I guess the exotic and harder zoas are from aussie; not sure though :P

This is the dude I've been waiting to hear chime in:lol:

You listen to him. He knows his stuff good.

Although your logic is correct your sample size is far to small to eliminate bias. This is the internet and everyone's entitled to their opinion, let's just be diligent in our homework before posting information that might not be true.

Another thing you need to consider is that there is ONE ocean, "Aussie" drives the price up just as fast as "Japanese Deep water" does. Are these actually collected from Aussieland and NOWHERE else in the ocean? Are these even from Australia? Probably not but if it jacks the price up and ensures demand people will say anything.




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Thanks Kevin :).

Do you have a photo of the Zoa before it closed? Some are notoriously difficult to care for expert and beginners alike.

Can't agree more. Terms like "aussie", "deep water" and not to forget "rare" always drive up prices like crazy! I should have written "as far as I have been told" at the end of the sentence (I don't know why I always miss this line! maaaaann).

My parameters are the following:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Calcium 480
Phosphates 0
pH 8.1-8.2 (i use seachem reef buffer)
KH 11 (i have hard water)
Temp 23 celcius

I'm all out of ideas and tests.
Ren

couple things:

blasting your zoa with mysis isnt going to make it open

although zoas sure can stay closed for long periods of time a healthy zoa should open within a half day of being in a new tank.

i doubt its nudis

check for zoa pox

i notice you have a mp10 in a 33g, what setting and percent are you running it at?


how new is this tank?


your temp is way to low which is a big contributing factor with zoos

alk is also way to high for zoos


those are your two biggest red alerts going off for me.

I'll up the temperature (easy enough) and how to i bring down my alkalinity?

I'll.find pictures of zoa pox, but so far i see nothing strange on the zoa.

My MP10 is on Ecosmart mode and running at about 75%.

Ren

No zoa pox. I checked.
Ren

would probably also turn down your vortech , mines running same mode but at 50%

to lower your alk do a water change with a salt with a lower alk in it , what type of salt are you using?

zoa pox are small yellow spots inside the stalk of the zoa , only a dip im furan2 will fix that if its the case.


lighting??

I'll tone the pump down.
I have a Radion which reaches 40% at noon then goes down to 35% at 2pm.
I have Red Sea Salt and Instant Ocean Reef.
Ren

ok your radion is fine , although i dont know if you reach proper spectrum or not but intensity wise is not the issue.

switch to the instant ocean to lower your alk

do you have any idea of its previous history like when was it fragged, what type of tank it came from?

what type of zoa it is by chance?

have you dipped the frag?

The spectrum looks ok, but then again how do i know. I tried to use as many presets as possible.

No idea on the history. I bought it at a lfs and it was beautiful. It's a neon green and grayish green center.

I've dipped it.in the tech i to no avail.

Ren

hummm ok after reading your other thread now im worried that your adding too many thingsto your tank that you cant test for.....




less is more.

you do not need a bunch of supplements to make a tank thrieve, zoas in particular are hard to satisfy with chemicals they do fine with just good water quality, good flow and strong lighting.

zoas are quite simple they need a proper temp,alk,salinity,lights and flow.....thats about the major things everything else is just a matter of opinion to make your zoas grow better or get better color.while they can do well if one or two of these things are out a bit for a short period of time they wont do well if this is a permanant problem.

no need to feed, dose , dip or talk dirty to them....they get by very well on the basics.

while vit c dosing is ok i wouldnt do it in a new tank like yours untill the tank is stable for over a year.

why?

Was told to dip it just to clean it. I'll be changing a few gallons today and try to find stability within my tank. I've been meaning to change my aquascape anyways to make room for more lr.

Thanks for your help. I truly appreciate it.
Terence

my pleasure bud:)

fix your alk and temp would be your first things to attack , cut out adding anything to your tank period , find stability.

youll be fine;)


cheers

denny

oh and if you need to dip do revive or coral rx

Zoanthids tend to melt. They are sensitive to shift in water parameters, especially alkalinity.

Things that really help zoanthids (maybe not so other corals)

- Feeding with Chromaplex each day (now experimenting with Fauna Marin zoa food)

- Vitamine C dosing can help a lot

_ good light and good flow.

- Peroxyde dip if there is any sign of cyano, algae or black coat on them


The smaller zoanthus sociatus are harder to keep. They seem to require a lot more food in the water. Larger zoanthids, especially large paly, can eat larger food like cyclops and they grow and do much better in the aquarium.

The ocean is extremely rich in phytoplankton and zooplankton. Our tanks are usually too sterile for them to thrive. Some species will thrive but there is no garantee that any specific specie will do.