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.