Melting Zoas/Paly's

[noirsphynx]

I'm getting to my wit's end with them melting for no apparent reason. I have lost so many over the years that I think I'd cry if I ever sat down and thought about what I had and don't have now!!! I recently lost my Jason Fox Blood Shot's and now my Space Monsters are melting away I don't have spiders, nudi's or pox or anything I can tell that's bothering them. I do have asterina stars but they never go anywhere near my zoa's/paly's. I did notice something a couple weeks ago, there was something strange looking on the inside stalk of my space monsters(notice the dark lines inside the far left play, this is also the one that melted on me a couple days ago) They also look skinny and so do a couple other of my paly frags.

[paddyob]

Still have an asterina problem?

My zoas are almost gone. 15-20 done.

[noirsphynx]

Originally Posted by paddyob

Still have an asterina problem?

My zoas are almost gone. 15-20 done.

Yeah, I keep a verrry close eye on them and I have never ever seen them on any of my zoas/palys yet(knock on wood). They mainly stay on the algae covered glass.

[daniella3d]

I am starting to think that zoanthids need a separated tank where they live alone with no other coral near buy. Some are very sturdy and some always show some sign of problem. I had a magicians paly frag that had 2 separated colonies on it. One was a single polyp and they other were 3. They grew nicely and very fast until on day for no reason they started to show sign of getting skinny and sort of shrinking but the one polyp was not affected. That one polyp multiplied to 5 polyp while the others did not do well..

then one day I do a water change and those there were looking bad started to come back while the one polyp colonie (now 5) started to do the same shrinking and skinny feature.

On the other end, I have some armageddon, rainbow and pink & gold for a year and half and they never ever showing sign of this. It is very very strange.

There must be something in the water that they don't like, or that disturb them. I also noticed that one day I had put some iron and magnaneese in the water for my alveopora and the magicians instantly closed and started a cycle of shrinking and looking skinny again. I had to do 3 water change side by side to see them make a come back.

Each time I do a water change one or the other colonies is going through such cycle...sometime they come back, sometime they just melt.

If only we knew what they needed and why they were doing this. That's the million $$$ question and if I ever become very rich, like winning at the lottery, I will put a good bunch of money on research on this.

[fishytime]

whats the big mystery?......simple fact is zoanthids and palys are collected from a wide range of "zones".....everywhere from tidal zones that get exposed to the air, to 50-100' deep......this makes it extremely hard to know what light and flow conditions will make zoa X happy.......heres my zoa routine......bring zoa X home from the store........dip and inspect zoa X thoroughly....... GLUE zoa X down where I think I want it (very important step here, most zoas will never settle in and grow if they are getting bumped around)......if zoa X doesnt seem to be happy in the chosen spot, I take it out, dip it again, inspect it again and glue it down in a different spot.....if it was in the light, I put it in the shade......thats about all you can do really......that and resign to the fact that we will never make 100% of our coral happy 100% of the time....

[daniella3d]

YOu see, I have a little problem with your statement here. Some people have zoanthids growing well for years and then out of nowhere, for no apparent reason they just melt.

If your assumption was right, they would melt right at the begining and not months or years later.

sure....we don't know where they were collected and all..but salt water from the ocean is pretty much similar, it's mostly the temperature that change with depth. As long as we keep an acceptable temperature and acceptable close enough parameters to the ocean water, they should be able to survive.

In any case, they should not do ok for so long and then pouffff....just melt.

Yes that is a big and a very big mystery.

One thing that I have noticed is that some are very sensitive to sudden changes in water parameters and some are rock solid no matter what happen in the aquarium. Some are definitly more resistant than others and the larger palythoas are more resistant than the smaller more finicky zoanthus sociatus.

Take the exemple of my magicians...they can go thriving and multiplying like crazy (obviously having the right conditions!) and for no apparent reason, without an hour, they shrivel and look bad for an undetermined reason and length of time. They might come back and start to grow like weeds again...it's a mystery yes.

Originally Posted by fishytime

whats the big mystery?......simple fact is zoanthids and palys are collected from a wide range of "zones".....everywhere from tidal zones that get exposed to the air, to 50-100' deep......this makes it extremely hard to know what light and flow conditions will make zoa X happy.......heres my zoa routine......bring zoa X home from the store........dip and inspect zoa X thoroughly....... GLUE zoa X down where I think I want it (very important step here, most zoas will never settle in and grow if they are getting bumped around)......if zoa X doesnt seem to be happy in the chosen spot, I take it out, dip it again, inspect it again and glue it down in a different spot.....if it was in the light, I put it in the shade......thats about all you can do really......that and resign to the fact that we will never make 100% of our coral happy 100% of the time....