Strontium helping zoanthids?
 

I have noticed that when my zoanthids are shriveled and looking like they will melt, if I dose strontium they get better and back to normal the next day.

Coincidence? This is pretty much consistant now. I do water change once per month and when ever my zoanthids start to look bad and shriveled I add strontium and they recover nicely.

Because of that I now dose Seachem Reef Strontium once per week. After analysis of my water by a pro lab, I was told that my strontium level was low and since I started dosing this, it really seem to help my zoanthids and paly.

I also dose Lugol, but dosing Lugol alone never did seem to do a beneficial effect on the zoanthids. I have been dosing vitamine C for a year now and that seem to help a bit but they still had episode of melting/growing.

If you try it, let me know if it work for you. Hope I am not imagining things and these are not just a bunch of coincidences. Also feeding them with Fauna Marin Ultra Zoa get them growing nicely.

Good luck with your zoanthids :)

Does iodine also help with these?

How much in % of water do change monthly, I find that my evaporation is about a gallon a day which works out to approx. 30 gallons a month so I dose weekly for KH and Calcium and everything seems good, and I have lots of zoes & paly's . Don't know much about Strontium so maybe I'll look into that. I only do a 25 - 30 % water change every couple of months, who knows whats right, there does not seem to be a standard it seems. here's a couple of pictures.
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/...ps10f414a8.jpg
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5af26f0b.jpg

don't, ask me why, but some people never have any problem with zoanthids. Some just can't keep them and they just melt away. For those who have no problem with zoanthids than stick to the motto ''if it's not broken then don't fix it''

For those who do struggle with zoanthids shriveling and melting, this might be something to help.

I don't think iodine does improve struggling zoanthids like strontium does, at least I did not see any effect on my zoanthids from dosing Lugol which I have been dosing since day one but still had problem with my zoanthids.

I had some magicians paly that were slowly going away, getting shriveled a bit more each week and since I started dosing strontium they have started to open up again and grow. This could all be just a coincidence, but I don,t see what else could be helping them since the rest has been the same for 3 years. I did change my skimmer for a better one but I noticed this before I replaced the skimmer or the light bulb.

One month ago I started dosing bio-cube for getting my nitrates lower, but again that did not seem to change anything as of yet. My nitrates are now around 7ppm.

I don't think its a coincidence. Zoas do love strontium (atleast many have reported tank). I may be wrong and so zoa-holics can chip in :) Here's some refs:

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/25861...pecs-for-zoas/
http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/reef...ium-print.html
http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/archive.../t-26012.html?
http://www.aquariumdomain.com/viewCo...hp?coral_id=53

Oh cool! thanks a lot for doing this research.

You are welcome :)

You can find a lot of hits with "Zoa loves strontium" and things like that :D I think with soft corals and the norms like "easy to keep", many people overlook the fact that soft corals also require some things (stronti, iodi, bromine, etc.) to grow and zoas, being possibly the most finicky among soft corals (another one is gorgs IME), react the most with trace elements.

I am wondering what is the effet of overdosing. From one link you posted it seem that strontium can be toxic if present in too large quantity so testing before dosing should be done.

I know for sure in my case that my reef is always low in strontium if not dosing. I guess I will buy a Salifert strontium kit as it seem to be the best kit out there (Seachem too complicated).

I am no expert in trace elements but as far as the general idea goes, even a bit overdosing of iodi, stronti and all other thing (bromine, sulphate, potassium, etc.) can be more toxic to lives than overdosing the big three. Maybe because of the reactive nature of those ions or something. Maybe that's why they are present in such small amount in nature.

Since you have found it useful maybe you should grab a stronti kit :D

Daniella, thanks for starting this thread, its time we figures this out, too many people cannot keep zoas. I love zoas and mine used to grow amazingly, then one day they started to melt, not all of them just certain colonies. I don't think it has anything to do with nitrates, mine read 0, I have noticed impovement with more frequent larger water changes so they must need something replenished. I am going to try strontium and will report back, thanks again.

That's zoa alright ;)

Now-a-days, whenever someone tells me "zoa/paly are beginner's coral", I chuckle :razz:

Zoa's don't seem to like my tank as well...following this thread for sure!

Please keep us updated with testing as I've read Strontium is hard to test???

Thanks!:mrgreen:

In the reefaction forum there is a chymist that has access to a very large pro lab (He's the head of the metal testing dept.) and he's willing to help test the test kits for strontium to see which is more precise. He was the one who analyzed my water and pointed out the low level of strontium. Strontium in natural sea water is around 12ppm and in my tank the strontium is constantly at 6ppm, so quite low. It seem that even water changes does not manage to keep the strontium level to a normal level.

He analyzed the water from around 10 different tanks and all were low in strontium, even those that are doing water changes each week. Why? I don't know. Maybe some of the corals and creatures we keep in our aquariums are consuming more strontium than we think.

He has been dosing strontium for a year. He's lucky to have acccess to a big lab so he can test this easily and he keep is level around 10ppm I beleive. After we manage to determine which test is better, I will be testing my water again to see if I am dosing correcly. I will try to keep my strontium level around 10ppm or so.

I would not advise dosing strontium regulary without testing. One could surely try to add a bit of it to see if it would help their declining zoanthids but before going wild with this and starting to dose, I would test.

I posted this so that maybe someone with problem zoanthids could also verify if they are getting some results by dosing a bit of strontium and to see if it help. It seem that most of our tanks are low in strontium and it is rare to see one with proper level.

Calcareous corals can incorporate strontium into their skeletons, hence with the Sr levels will deplete over time.

Daniella, if you can, see if he can test some of your freshly mixed water before a water change. I'd be curious to know if the Sr levels are already low in your salt mix, which would give you consistently low readings. We might be able to pinpoint what is using it the most.

+1. Many salts skip on proper levels of such elements. Maybe because of their expense? Or to keep the market of the trace elements alive?

Here's a nice article on strontium by none other than Dr. Randy :D

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/11/chemistry

Looks like seawater actually has around 8ppm (not 12ppm) so Daniella's strontium is not very low (6ppm) but that 25% can make some big difference I guess. Did you test it after dosing? I looked into aquavitro salinity and H2ocean's salt mix analysis and they seem to guarantee strontium anywhere between 8 to 10ppm.

He's already done such test and only one seem to be quite low in strontium:

http://www.reefaction.com/nosforums/...em.php?id=1792

http://www.reefaction.com/nosforums/...em.php?id=1936

But it seem that even people using a salt with good amount of strontium might still be low in this element, thus the use of testing.

I am using IO Reef crystal salt wich has a concentration of strontium quite high with 12ppm and yet I am always low on that element.

Only the Royal Nature salt seem to be really low on strontium, all others seem to be fine and also the second batch of Royal nature he tested had much higher level of strontium near 10ppm.

http://www.reefaction.com/nosforums/...em.php?id=1763

I agree with that!:biggrin:

Last time i tried zoas they melted so quickly as if in acid.
Now i want to try again with Strontium, but don't want to waste the money again.


.

Recently a friend and I have become zoa and paly addicts. We have around 20-25 types each in our tanks and really haven't had any problems. I have kept them for many years and never had any "melt". I use IO regular salt and dose with c-balance and vitamin c. Never actually checked my strontium levels but the C-balance does have strontium in it.

Dosing vitamine C really help too.

Another thing that really help is having a dedicated system for zoa and paly. The less corals are mixed with them the better. People who have zoa and paly dominated tanks usually have much less problem or no problem at all.

Can you recommend a dosage for Vit C?

Thanks :mrgreen:

Definately agree with that!:smile:

I do 5ppm only. And the dosage depends on the product you use (I use sodium ascorbate) and the amount of water in your system. Personally I dose 1/4 teaspoon per day in my 75 gallons with a dosing pump I spread the dose in 12. That give me roughly 5ppm.

I dilute enough vitamine C for a week and then my dosing pump spread that each day in 12 doses.

Here you can get some instructions on dosing and the amount to dose:

http://www.reef-geeks.com/forums/che...-c-dosing.html

Also I buy my sodium ascorbate from www.iherb.com it is cheap and pure buffered vitamine C, so it is not so acid since it is buffered and wont bring your water too acidic.

This is what I use:

http://www.iherb.com/NutriBiotic-Sod...oz-454-g/10178