Why are my Zoas slowly vanishing?

[JazzZero]

Ok my question is exactly what my title is; "Why are my Zoas slowly vanishing?". Several months before my Zoas were going amazing and not they are slowly disappearing. I know my parameters are great seeing as how i carry sps, acan, chalice, Star polyps,lobos,musrooms,rhizo, symolia, dendro and xenia. And i check my parameters also my nitrates and etc are good. So i see no reason for my zoas to be going bad but why is it?

just a few things to consider

(29G Bio Cube)
-i have a pretty strong current (koralia 1 and the normal pump for a BC)
-i dont test for iodine (maybe bad i dont have enough)
-very few months i take rocks out for a cleaning (but put the corals in buckets before hand)
-sometimes i move coral and that causes dust to go around.
-i use deltec salt

[jenglish]

look for little dark stars or red "bugs"

I would not remove the corals and rock to clean the tank. Is there a reason you remove everything? I don't think that is related to the zoa problem though.

If you change your water very often I doubt it is the iodine

[CoachOJ]

I had crabs eat mine in my 9gl nano. Saw a maroon colored crab in a cave with both green and red polyps. He got all my greens but only half of my small brown colony. Once I got him out my colony grew back.

[Merfin70]

I feel your pain. For me, some Zoas and Palys are much more difficult than the "harder" corals. There have been a couple of threads on here to that affect as well so we're not the only ones. Some do great in my tank (Eagle Eyes, PD, Nukes, Dragon Eyes). Others seem to hate me (Tubs Blues, Rainbows, Mohawks).

They do OK for a bit then slowly fade to nothing. I've tried some a couple of times with the same result while the zoas/palys next to them explode with growth. Welcome to the fun.

Meanwhile, my LPS/SPS/Clam all thrive as if the tank is the greatest place on earth. Very frustrating some times.

[650-IS350]

as long as you don't have any of these, your pretty good.

http://www.coralpedia.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=384

[Pufferpunk]

How do they look before they disappear? Do they close up? Do they appear to be "melting"?

[Merfin70]

I don't want to hijack Jazz's thread but if you're asking me, its more a melting. My current example would be my prized Purple Hornets (which BTW I did not pay $305 for thank goodness). They started great, expanded to 5 polyps from the single I purchased. They are still on the original frag disk so I can see them very well and know that I don't have predators or irritants too close by.

Couple of weeks ago I noticed the polyp mat stretching out where the polyps were really really separated from each other. Then they started closing up and then melting on me though it takes some time for a polyp to finally disappear. I'm down to 2 polyps at present and neither looks really healthy/opens fully plus the mat doesn't look all that great either.

I'd love to say that I don't have any nasties in the tank at all but I do have:

1) Foraminiferan/Sponges(??) - I seem to have more of them recently and they are getting bigger. Not sure exactly what they feed on but there are definately more of them. They seem to stay mostly in the shady areas of the rock so I think they are sponges.

2) Vermitids - Definately have some of these. I blow off the slimers with a Turkey Baster when I see them annoying something.

I don't currently dose Vit-C (though have been thinking about it) but I do enrich my feedings with Selcon (which has Vit C I believe) and also dose Seachem Reef Plus after each water change.

[Pufferpunk]

The amount of VC in Selcon will not come even close to the amounts I/we are dosing. Melting is the reason I dose.

I got a 5-polyp frag last week of the Purp Hornets. I didn't realize they were so expensive!

[Merfin70]

Yea, I don't know when they became so insane. I got mine a couple of months ago at a high but reasonable price. I now see them on eBay for some pretty big amounts.

On my melting zoas, the Vit C regiem is on my list of To Dos once I figure out how to get rid of my Caulerpa problem.

[Pufferpunk]

I'd dose before anything. The calupera has to be removed by hand.

[650-IS350]

Supply and demand in regards to Purple Hornets.

People see that people are starting to talk about them so demand gets high then $$$$$$$ explodes. I used to see those on ebay here and there but never went that high until folks started talking about them.