Zoos closing and dissolving???

[gman0526]

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I have been having an issue with zoos lately. Some of the polyps close up not to open again and they get a film over the closed polyps that I try to brush off, it comes off but only to come back later. When this happens the polyp starts to shrink until there's only a thin layer of actual coral on the rock????? I managed to save a colony that regrew over a period of 2-2.5 mos. and is doing fine now but it's really a hassle to have it happen in the 1st place. And even worst not knowing what causes it. Any ideas??? I have the same thing happening on some of my blue zoos so you can imagine my concern

[fischcrazy]

i had the same thing with my red zoos, i think it just a problem with certain species, but i really dont know

[thrlride]

I had some yellows totaly dissolve in a week. Nothing I could do saved them.

Not what you wanted to hear I'm sure.

[Speckled Grouper]

Happens to me too, they close up and then start getting thin and stick like, usually means that they'll be goners in a week or so, I don't think any dipping helps that.
What I also noticed is that the pods seems to clean the dead skin off and if there's any healthy ones left, they will usually make it.

[gman0526]

It has been suggested to me by a fellow hobbist that it might be Beggiatoa sp. fungus. As a treatment a dip on a solution of 10% hydrogen peroxide and 90% RO water has been suggested. Anybody has any experience with this maladity? Has anybody tried this kind of dip b4? TY everybody.

[loup]

i would like to know as one of my new colony is cover up w/ fungus. i'm not sure if i should frag out the good looking one. i hope they pull.

[reefkeeper59]

I have dipped some in tap water and it has helped. Not sure what was wrong with them. No nudi's or fungas. Just melt away.

[impur]

Originally posted by gman0526
It has been suggested to me by a fellow hobbist that it might be Beggiatoa sp. fungus. As a treatment a dip on a solution of 10% hydrogen peroxide and 90% RO water has been suggested. Anybody has any experience with this maladity? Has anybody tried this kind of dip b4? TY everybody.


Happened to a few of my colonies around January. I tried every single dip suggested on this site, peroxide, tetracycline, RO, RO with iodine, hyposalinity.....you name it i tried it and it didn't work. I had about 5 colonies do this over a period of a few weeks and lost all but 3 polyps of one colony. That frag has since grown to about 6 polyps. I had to frag way ahead of where the melting was occuring. Out of the 4 frags i made from that same colony that is the only one of them to survive.

[Mantis737]

Same thing happened to a colony of reds of mine. No dips or fragging would save them.

[Avi]

I'm glad I came across this thread because I think it's about the same thing that happened to one of my zoanthid colonies that had been really beautiful. They're pinks and they were thriving until some kind of film would cover the polyps and they wouldn't open. The film appeared to be a blue color and if I rubbed the affected polyps with my finger, the blue film would kind of start to come off but not completely. Every polyp that got covered with the film eventually died and I lost about 90% of the polyps but the problem is over now so I'm happy to have what I have left because they've already started to multiply and they're doing that fairly quickly.

I wasn't able to dip, because the colony was attached to a big rock. The way I solved the problem was to rub the closed polyps with my fingers to break the blue film up and then blast them with water using a turkey baster. I did this very thoroughly about twice a day. If I saw any polyp shrink in size at all, I scratched it off the rock with my finger along with any soft-feeling tissue on the colony. I scratched it right down to the rock in many cases. Obviously, this was a very drastic method, but there was no stopping that blue film from getting worse and worse until I did what I just mentioned.

By taking these measures, the blue film got less and less apparent over a matter of about two to three weeks and then finally it disappeared.

Along with what I mentioned I also put the infected colony in an area of high water flow, which I also think helped.

All in all, I do believe that what I did stopped the advancing of this infestation and that's why some of the polys survived and I think it will be back to its former glory in a few months.

If anyone tries this, please post your success or failure in defeating this problem as there isn't much information on it or on how to treat it when zoanthids are attacked by this fungus, if that's what it is.

[BradL.]

One thing I think that needs mentioning here is water chemistry. Before dipping a failing Zoanthid colony I would get a good test kit. Your alkalinity should be that of natural seawater. Some Zoas are more sensitive than others. I just like to rule out the basics before I start dipping.

[MUCHO REEF]

I think this would be a great opportunity for everyone who has experienced this to share what if anything they did differently prior to the onset of your zoos failing. Not saying you did anything wrong here, just asking to see if we can pool or thoughts and see if we can figure this out. Were they recently moved, was the substrate disturbed at all, were there any new additions, any changes in salt or other additives. Was there a temp spike or drop? What were all of your parameter reading across the board. Anything, I mean anything, would help us all out. Lets see if there are any common denominators/clues that we can extract from this.

Mucho

[SuperFishy]

happens to me too. for no known reason at all.... i've had some sit in my tank for months in the same location, grow great, then all of a sudden do this without me doing a water change, or adding something new or anything. They just seem to close up, thin out and wither away. im stumped.

[Scribe]

It seems to be a common problem. Unfortunately it seems to be uncurable so far. I had a crazy colony of yellows, that were growing like weeds, then slowly all closed up and disolved away. I dipped with the hydrogen mix and no luck. I've dipped other colonies the same way and it worked. I think it's just one of the problems yet unsolved with zoo's. Hopefully someone will come up with a solution soon. Hopefully there is some comfort in knowing your not alone. The best solution I can think of is try to get your different morphs, atleast your favorite ones out to local reefers so if something happens to yours, you can get a frag of them back from the people you traded with.

[MUCHO REEF]

I know sometimes I might come off the wrong way, but believe me, I don't mean any harm at all with a lot of my question. I just know in my heart that there is a reason for a lot of what we all are experiencing with our zoos. The reason I ask those questions above, and I know someone won't believe a word of this, but here goes. 2 weeks ago, I purchased a 4 x 2 inch piece of branch rock covered with about 40 zoos. At the time of purchase, I could only see 2 polyps on the rock that were expanding, only two. The polyps were stunning so I took a chance, and this is something I never do. If the colony isn't expanding in the LFS, I won't touch, ever. This colony was an exception, great prices, lots of zoos, so I purcahsed it. I brought the colony home and did my usual dip. I have a specimen type tray set up that is shallow enough for water to barely cover half the colony. Using a stationary magnifying glass and a set ot tweezers, I carefully inspected every inch of the rock. I placed it in my tank and waited. For 7 straight days nothing changed, yet, the polyps were still intact and I saw no visable signs of decay or die off. On the 8th day, I notice the familiar algae green colored coating on all of the polyps in the center of the rock, about 12 or so. From the 8th day to the 14th day, I stuck my hand in the tank, not moving the rock which will only delay there opening, I used my soft tooth brush to brush up and over the crown to help remove the greenish coating. Still, no decay or die off. On the 14th day, I placed the colony underneath a branch rock which slightly shadowed the colony in question. Here's what happened next. On the 16th day, the colony began to come alive. Each day, 1, 2 or 3 new polyps would open that never opened before. I stopped my daily brushing on the first day that they started to rejuvinate. It appears that they were able to rid themselves of this greenish coating on their own. As I sit here at this very moment, I just checked the colony again. There are just a few polyps left that haven't sprung open. I did nothing spectacular, but why did this colony come back on its own? Why did your colonies perish and my colony recovered? I don't know, but it did. This was the first time I had moved the rock slightly under an overhang in my tank that was sick or having some issues. Was it the shadowing, maybe somehow the lighting was an irratant as it tried so hard on its own to recover? Again, I don't know, I just know that each of us have to ability to just watch, experiment and document what we do. If it happens again, and you had great success the first time, then simply repeat the process. This is what the pros do, and so can you. If I have a hunch, I just go with it. I mean, what can you lose if the colony is going to perish anyway. Ok, I rambled again, but I hope you can see my point.

I hope everyone can share as much info about their colonies so maybe we can all figure this thing collectively.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Mucho

[Scribe]

Mucho, glad to hear your turn around. I can not recomend strongly enough doing what Mucho talks about with inspecting every piece added to your tank. It might seem like a pain when all you want to see is the piece in your tank, but it's better then dealing with a massive loss. I got a piece from a LFS that the guy told me used to be completely covered with bright colored orange and yellow zoo's. He said it was $100 piece, and he was selling it for $30 becuase it was dying. I thought it would be a great piece if it could make it. I brought it home and did a dip. Off popped a nudi, then another. I was like alright thats why it was dying.....well before I put it in the tank I got out the magnifying glass. I found about a third of the colonies had nudi eggs on them, as well as a few sundail snails. I pulled off all the eggs, and snails and did another dip. The colony has since doubled in size.

[MUCHO REEF]

EXACTLY, EXACTLY, ...that's exactly my point. I'm not saying that you will never ever lose a colony, because you will indeed have a one that will crash on you for no apparent reason sometimes. What I am saying is that you can save most colonies that are sick or have issues by simply acting quickly. This is why I take just a few minutes each morning just to scan every single colony in my tank before I leave for work. I do the same once I return home. Through a process of elimination, try to find the root cause of the problem ( parasite, parameter, predator, fungus, BI etc,) or experiment with potential remedies. I would love to listen and hear what everyone has to share. This is how we all learn, we're not in this thing alone. That is why we ( I ) come here, to listen, learn and share all of the experiences we've had with Zooanthids.

For those who still choose not to dip new arrivals, you are playing mere Russian Roulette with your monetary investments in reefing. There's no doubt in my mind.

Ooops, did it again...rambling. I meant no offense to anyone BTW.

Just my 2 cents

Mucho

PS, I tip my hat to you SCRIBES. You wEre proactive, not reactive in taking the measures you took. I can only imagine what would have happend if you hadn't dipped that colony. But you did, and now look at what mother nature has rewarded you with, a rock full of new zoos. YOU DAH MAN !!!!

[BradL.]

Here is another observation of mine that makes me go huh? I try to keep the water in my 55 as nearly perfect as possible. I have a refugium loaded with chaeto, sump with a decent skimmer,sqwd on return,I test weekly,15 gallon water change every 2 weeks with RO water and I feed my zoas zooplankton every 2 days. I have 250 watt 14k halides. I dont get that great of growth. A couple colonies do good but for the most part its pretty slow. Now the wierd part. My girl friend also has a 29 at her house. Its got alot of live rock,a seaclone that doesnt do much,and 110 watts of PCs.Jebos to be exact. Shes always had a pretty big problem with red algae on her rocks and sand and glass. She never does water changes and she tops off with tap water. Weve never done any testing to her water other than salinity. Every Zoa frag Ive given her does excellent in that tank. Double my growth. Are the high nutrients that cause her algae blooms feeding her zoas? It sure makes me think so and I just wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

[Scribe]

I have heard more then once that zoo's do like dirty water. I think my zoo's are doing better now with a skimmer and a sump, then they did in my old 29 with no skimmer and no sump.

[MinibowMatt]

My zoos do great in my water, and It is really clean-- big changes once a week (in my nano) no measurable anything

[DEIGNAN14]

I lost one colony last week to this fungus and now I am suspect of other colonies starting to look infected. Can you tell me how long to dip them and if this fungus will spread to corals that are not zoas. Is a quarantine tank necessary or can I dip and return to main tank?
Any help will be appreciated.

[Avi]

Can you describe what the "fungus" looks like, or better yet, post a good photo?

[Elite]

I'm losing a really nice one today :( .... Open great for weeks then one day they just close up and they are starting to disolve today :(

The only thing I can think of is the day before they closed I used Joe Juice. I think I dropped some on it or something :( ..

[MinibowMatt]

that sucks Elite...
Have you tried dipping them since they closed? or fragging off some good polyps before they die?

[Speckled Grouper]

I got two very nice very large very pink colonies at the same time. Put one in my 29g Zoo tank, the other in the 20g frag tank. The one in the 29g looked awesome and was thriving, the other was looking kinda bad, I thought I was going to loose it at one point. Then the healthy one started to decline and the bad one started to look good. I dipped both, now the bad one is thriving in my 180g and the good one is on it's way out in the frag tank.
Go figure.....

[jordanh]

I think the only sure fire way to protect against this kind of things is to share a frag of your favorate zoanthids with another local reefer like Scribe said; make a backup so if yours crashes at least you can start over again with a frag.

[Elite]

Originally posted by MinibowMatt
that sucks Elite...
Have you tried dipping them since they closed? or fragging off some good polyps before they die?

I till have 2 polyps out of 25 :( .... Yeah I did dipped them.. but didn't help

[sadsak]

i have heard that their is a heart worm pill for dogs . you must get it from a vet. some kind of antibiotic ...that you can mix in a bucket with r.o water that will help .. i will see if i can find a name of the pill.....

[bkztrini465]

Hey Guys, just came accross this thread. Good read. This happened to me before out of no where. I tried a FW dip with no success. I've been in the clear for a long time, but who knows it could happen again. Hope someone finds the "cure" for the fungus problem.

[lalc]

The first thing I do (when the colony allows) is to frag separate and put in a separate tank--If you don’t have another tank give/swap it with a friend---if you don’t have a friend Hi my name is Curtis now give me some frags!!

I to am in the process of loosing one of my colony’s and after reading this article I am VARY glad that I GAVE yes GAVE my frags to others after all I don’t know it all and the best way to protect my investment (wining the auction plus shipping yhadayhada) is to isolate the frags.

Having read your article I choose to cut and frag the good ones and cut the rest. Not even going to bother trying to save them and I sleeps like a baby knowing that I can start over for free.

[Reef Junkie]

I think sometimes we just think too hard about what's going on in our tanks.

Seriously, if you want to think, think about this...

Remember that rash of flesh eating bacteria (Necrotizing fasciitis) that was terrorising our coutry a few years back?
It was plastered across the news and everyone was paranoid that they would get it. Who here even knows someone that had it, personally? Probably noone, because it attacked people that had weakened immune systems. Kind of like these dying zoanthids.

Healthy animals don't just melt, there is more to it then spontaneous fungal growth. Whatever is actually eating the animals is always there, just waiting for an opportunity.

So lets stop thinking this is a fungus or anything like that.
Lets get back to basics. Just like the flesh eating bacteria, this malady is only affecting weak animals. There is something going on with our tanks that is causing a similar experience, lets call it zoanthid RTN.

Yet, all that has been posted is empathetic gestures of having similar experiences.

Who here has began doing serious water changes? Who here has stoped and done a full cleaning of their system?
It's just too easy to blame this on a mysterious "fungus".

This looks like another case of the white pox disease. All of our greatest thinking has lead us back to the same simple solution.
Water changes.
Oh, and that zoanthids don't like the lazy mans water change, carbon.

Cheers,
Mr. Happy

[EvilInSin]

I was having a huge problem with my Zoas, still am having some problems. I thought there must be a predator in the LR that I missed. I took down the whole tank and FW dipped all of my LR for a few hours. Yep I killed everything on the rocks I'm sure. Then to make sure I had no rogue crab that could have lived I inspected and poked each and every rock. Had an almost complete water change that night too.
It seemed like I had fixed the problem. Then I see some nasty looking pod on one of my zoas and sucked him out and killed him. The Zoas he was on started to die in the next few hours and is completely gone now. I got a mandarin fish to kill off all the bugs in my tank and am waiting to see if I see any more of the bugs.

However at this minute I have 4 small frags that are closed and for no apparent reason. They were open an happy for various amounts of time, then one day they just close up and dont open again. I adjust flow to give them more and nothing. I have now after aprox 2 week of closeing moved them to the bottom of the tank to see if it helps. They look fine and healthy but closed!
I think it has something to do with the types becuase the same types keep dieing on me. I think Zoanthis gigantus? (the PE types) are fickle for me. 1 RPE closed for 3 weeks now, and some green stardust PE closed for 2 weeks. I also have what I believe are herman reds closed, and some dark bluish ones closed.

I have lost several of the gigantus types (with the white stripes when closed) and lost 2 frags of Armageddons as well as some other brightly colored zoas. I have no idea what could be going wrong in my tank to make them close on me, I have at least 20 other frag sized colonies in the same tank that are open and growing well.

[Shultz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7666938#post7666938 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reef Junkie
I think sometimes we just think too hard about what's going on in our tanks.

Seriously, if you want to think, think about this...

Remember that rash of flesh eating bacteria (Necrotizing fasciitis) that was terrorising our coutry a few years back?
It was plastered across the news and everyone was paranoid that they would get it. Who here even knows someone that had it, personally? Probably noone, because it attacked people that had weakened immune systems. Kind of like these dying zoanthids.

Healthy animals don't just melt, there is more to it then spontaneous fungal growth. Whatever is actually eating the animals is always there, just waiting for an opportunity.

So lets stop thinking this is a fungus or anything like that.
Lets get back to basics. Just like the flesh eating bacteria, this malady is only affecting weak animals. There is something going on with our tanks that is causing a similar experience, lets call it zoanthid RTN.

Yet, all that has been posted is empathetic gestures of having similar experiences.

Who here has began doing serious water changes? Who here has stoped and done a full cleaning of their system?
It's just too easy to blame this on a mysterious "fungus".

This looks like another case of the white pox disease. All of our greatest thinking has lead us back to the same simple solution.
Water changes.
Oh, and that zoanthids don't like the lazy mans water change, carbon.

Cheers,
Mr. Happy

Couldn't agree more with you :)

I also think that by then moving/dipping/cutting all the other Zao's you might have you then stress them, in turn weakening them & more like to catch it themselves....

Cheers Shelton.

[jessiesgrrl]

I have had several that melted... but I think mine were due to stress. I bought a UV sterilizer and since then, it hasn't been a problem for normal day to day tank colonies. Shipping is of course different, I still lose some there, but other than that I have been good.

And YES! I do water changes... LOL

Laurie

[Reef Junkie]

Lets face it, no matter how much you know, or how dilligent you are, you will always lose animals from time to time.
If you're losing animals more often then keeping them alive, then there is a bigger problem at hand.

That bigger problem is too much or too little love.

If you're new to this hobby, the too little love isn't what's in your heart, but maybe well thoughtout good intentions that went bad. Usually from a lack of experience.

The opposite is someone that is over zealous and keeps their reef in tip top shape. The moment they begin to get a little lax from lack of interest or life gets in the way, the tank can head south, fast. Especially people who feed religiously and a lot, but also use heavy skimming and other mechanical means to clean the water.

Either way, I've said it before, I'll say it again; find someone you know that has a really nice tank and seems to know what they're doing, then introduce yourself. Make sure they're local and same sex. This helps with emergencies and staying married.

Ask them if they would be willing to help you with questions about your tank, a mentor. Your local reef club would be a great place to start, or just look on here.

Don't be shy to ask either, there are a lot of truely geniune and great mentors on just this forum alone.

Who knows, maybe a zoanthid mentor thread will begin?

I still use my mentor and we're great friends. I was kicking back some beers with one of my proteges last night.

[b0wenj]

This is starting to happen to some zoanthids I have and I really think it is because I removed my charcoal and left it out of my circulation for a while. Of course this would not be that bad except I have frogspawn, torch, hydnopora, pavona, hammer coral and a few other stinging corals that seem to leave traces of stuff in the water that without charcoal is probably just circulation in my tank and touching things I want to keep alive. Just my opinion but I think removing charcoal and having the type of tank inhabitants I have bit me on this one. To me this looks no different then if the zoanthids touched on of these stinging corals. This is why I think all the dipping in the world won't work. You dip the zoanthid and get it clean then stick in back in the same water. I wonder if someone tried to dip it or just move it to clean water if it would survive. I am going to try that. Let you know my results.

[dreamreefer]

ok, i didn't both reading the whole thread to find out if someone provided an answer for the white fungus/film over their zoos, so here it is:

the white film is an oppotunistic fungus that usually grow over stressed animals. If you had a colony going well for a while and all of a sudden you got that on that colony, most likely it is introduced from a foreign source. the whilte fungus will completely take over if nothing is done about it. I'd say as soon as you see them take the following actions:

1- NEVER EVER try to clear or clean that in the main tank, it WILL spread to other colonies which you;d hate to lose.

2- prepare a bowl of same tank water mixed with LUGOLS (follwoing instructions for dosage), move rock out and place it in the bowl. Using a tweezer, completely scrap all zoos covered with the white crap, as well as the ring of good, surrounding zoos.

3 - when all scraping is done, use a brush to brush the bare spot completely and what leaves behind, is a patch of bare rock, nothing else.

4 - dump water out and prepare second bowl of LuGOLS and leave rock in for a good 15 - 20 mins.

5- when its time to move the rock back, either place it to orig place or move it to a higer flow area to prevent any chance of the white stuff coming back.

I've been through that and l;ost several colonies and the above is what I adopt to use and it works all the time. Good luck all...

dreamreefer

[b0wenj]

Can you tell me what Lugos is and where I can buy some ?

I also wanted to mention in my case it is not white spots on the zoas. My zoas closed up and now seem to be covered in a brown bubble and the top of the zoanthid I notice starts to dissapear aftter about a week of this bubble being on it. If I touch the bubble it really appears to me like cyna alge consistancy but it isn't. Its almost a film. I have scraped this off and found it came back within a day.

I have already about 2 days ago moved the zoanthids I have with the problem to another tank by itself. Does not seem to be improving. No water was transfer to the new tank. In fact I mixed it all fresh. This was probably not the best option to do but I really did not want this to spread to the rest of my zoanthids.

[MinibowMatt]

back from the dead :)

[Avi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9559879#post9559879 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dreamreefer

the white film is an oppotunistic fungus that usually grow over stressed animals....dreamreefer

Okay...good info on the White...but recently, and not for the first time, a dark blue thin "skin" started covering some of the palythoa in my reef...Some of it can be removed very easily by blasting the colony with a turkey baster but some of it is more stubborn and I have to actually rub it off the polyps. It does choke and even kill polyps, though this time I was able to save them all.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what it is and what causes it? Thanks for any info on this..I haven't been able to find any anywhere despite having made the effort.

[dreamreefer]

have not heard of a dark blue thin film or seen it myself...does the film cover over a few polyps or individual polyps? I've seen zoos turn black or dark blue but that is on individuals, and it is not a "skin"...

[Avi]

well, it can cover a good number of the polyps in a big colony...Blowing water over them will loosen and dislodge some of the blue "skin" and then rubbing with the end of the turkey baster will dislodge some more. This is what I did last week and the colony seems now to have fully recovered. In the past, I have experienced losses though.

As far as the color is concerned, it really does appear to be a dark "Navy" blue color. It covers the neck of the polyps and the face of them, as well.

[dreamreefer]

that's interesting, again, never heard of before.i"ve seen black ones dislodge though, maybe they're the same...

[cmb88]

good discussion.. awhile back a guy asked about heartworm pills for dogs...I am a vet tech the name of the pill is heargaurd...but i cant see how dissolving this pill will help!! be careful

as for the rest i have had a similar problem..gooing gooing gone everything else healthy in tank good advice thanx.. i was thinking of just sacraficing that zoo for tanks sake thanks

[ryno212]

has anyone used furan-2 on this problem? seems to help with the zoa pox.... I will keep using it and let you know if this helps any..

[b0wenj]

Just wanted to give an update on my issue.....After taking the whole colony out of my main tank and putting in a new bucket of freshed mixed salt and a powerhead and leaving it there for about 3 weeks with somedays of all darkness and others light I finally moved my zoas back to my main tank and my problem seems to have gone away. The zoanthids that started to die did but the rest lived. I only waiting 3 weeks because I had other things going on and had no time to move them back sooner. I was only going to wait a week.

In my main tank I put back my carbon 3 weeks ago when this started and my zoanthids now seem to be thriving again since adding them back.

[happyface888]

Intresting thread, I am having the same problem atm, but there is no white or blue film on mine. I notice that my zoas are turning small and the stems are shrivled up like s stick and the heads dont look so big anymore. I have no idea what to do atm. I am going to do a water change and run some carbon and hope that they will do better.

[Jimbo327]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11188868#post11188868 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by happyface888
Intresting thread, I am having the same problem atm, but there is no white or blue film on mine. I notice that my zoas are turning small and the stems are shrivled up like s stick and the heads dont look so big anymore. I have no idea what to do atm. I am going to do a water change and run some carbon and hope that they will do better.

This is exactly happening to mine. No film. One day, I noticed a lot of the pink polyps are closed and some of the stems were really thin. I don't think it will make it.

[seapug]

Glad I found this thread and that I'm not the only one who this is happening to. I've always found Zoas to be about as carefree and easy as a "coral" can be, but in the past month I have had three colonies do the "withering" thing. The polyps get umbrella shaped and small then the stems get skinny and eventually dissolve away. I see no nudis and have no cheesy film stuff. The affected ones sit right next to others that show no symptoms. All have been in my tank for no less than 4 months. Very strange. Wish I knew what the hell was going on....

[siv]

I have the same problem with one of my small colonies, but its starting to recover.

About two weeks ago I started changing my dosing methods. Instead of putting in a whole bunch of alk buffer once a week i starting putting in a little bit every top-off (about 2 days).
About a week in to this dosing regime i got this brown slime/fungus on one of my small colonies of palys. I'd blow it off with a baster but it would keep coming back. About 1/3 of the colony died off before I smartened up.
Here's what I did.
I couldn't remove the colony, so I gave my DT a strong dose of iodine. the first dose got dumped into the tank, and the second dose got administered by a baster right onto the affected area of the palys. The fungus has since stopped, and the paly's are recovering slowly.

Now here's what I think triggered it. When i was testing my alk, I was taking shortcuts. Instead of adding one drop, capping and shaking the test tube, I initially added 5-6 drops, then went drop-by-drop. When I noticed the paly problem I tested everything, and when I did my alk test drop-by-drop (as per instructions) my alk was at 15dkh.

No water changes were done. Just the iodine treatment and I stopped adding alk buffer, but added calcium to bring the alk down.

HTH

[seapug]

so, siv, you think this is an issue of too high alk, eh? Interesting. I'm going to run a full battery of tests tomorrow and see if that's the case with my params. Thanks.

[Hypertek99]

Well guys a few of us have been doing an experiment and i think we may have a solution to the Zoa's melting problem. A few of us started dosing vitamin c tablets in our tanks with melting zoas and it seems to boost the immune system of the zoas. The polyps started to get big again and opening longer. Our problem was that the zoa would just all of a sudden get skinny and sometimes the top of the polyp would just squeeze up and then they start to melt with the skin peeling away then brown ooze comes out and then it's dead in like a few days. Well the vitamin c seems to have stopped it. You can e-mail me at [email protected] if you have questions as my pm here don't work.

[Hypertek99]

It's not verified yet as there's like 3 of us doing this if anyone else has melting zoas want to try maybe we are on to something.

[seapug]

I actually have been dosing Kent Marine C and putting Selco in the fix food for the past few days to help an injured fish. I haven't noticed any effect on the withering zoas yet, but I'll let you know if it seems to have any effect on them.

[mathias999us]

Any updates on the vitamin C approach?

[Pufferpunk]

There is a huge thread on "Treating With Vitamin C", at this forum & you should try to read as much of it as possible. See the before & after pics I posted on the 1st page. This thread is all about the exact problems I had before dosing Vit C. All my zoas are growing on large rocks & there is no way to dip them. The VC is working, not just with my sick zoas but the growth rate & polyp size is amazing on my healthy ones! Nevermind, my LPS/SPS have doubled/tripled in size! The amount of C in Selcon & Kent is minimal to the amounts I am dosing. I'm up to 45mg/gal, 2x/day.

[Skeptic_07]

I read that this sort of condition can be brought on by certain water parameters. high temperature, low salinity and i forgot the third parameter... its in aquarium corals by borneman in the disease section its called zoanthid condition 2 or something like that. He describes almost exactly what this guy is saying, zoos close and refuse to open and then begin to melt away. This happened to me once and i still have no idea why. Around august of this year I bought a frag of these really really cool pinks. They were open the day i put them in the tank. Each day after that i noticed less and less polyps were open until they were all closed about a week later. Then some gunky looking stuff started to cover the polyps and they slowly began to melt away. A month later the colony was reduced to just a few polyps. The thing is, i had zoos and palys living all around them FINE! The 'film' never spread to any other colonies and all of my other polyps seemed happy and thriving. Could it have been my water params? i guess it couldve been but then you'd have to say that some varieties are weaker than others when it comes to water quality and stress and some are more prone to this type of illness.

[IridescentLily]

Great thread. Good info on zoas that seem to "melt" away.

[Pufferpunk]

I made a typo, it's not 45mg I'm adding, it's 4500.

[sunny1977]

i no expert but i like to share my experience i had these fungus attack every time when i change activated charcoal or change my t5 tubes this was i did

i try iodine dip never helped


but i placed the whole colony in t5 lights in pure actinic with more flow tada they are opening after a week placed them in shaded area and slowly moved them up slowly it works i did it couple of times

[DaveG99]

bump

[Pufferpunk]

Are you adding vitamin C yet? They should be getting better if you are.

[jeremystotts]

I read the first page and getting tired so I skipped to the end, Ive had the same problem with Zoa's melting away, I had a frag station with 12 plugs on it and almost all were or had melted away, they were up high in a 29g biocube with the stock 10k and actinic PC's, I moved the melting zoas to the bottom of the tank and most of them started to open and doing better each day. Some were already gone and of course not all made it but I honestly think they were getting to much light, like the post I read by MUCHO REEF
about putting his colony under a overhang and coming back.
I don't know if it has been mentioned, probably has but just wanted to share my experience to help my fellow reefers.
jeremy

[Mr. Right]

I've had this "fungus" attack a colony and I put the colony under HIGH flow and it really seamed to help alot! Almost all the the colony has bounce back.

[coralfragger101]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9616989#post9616989 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cmb88
good discussion.. awhile back a guy asked about heartworm pills for dogs...I am a vet tech the name of the pill is heargaurd...but i cant see how dissolving this pill will help!! be careful

as for the rest i have had a similar problem..gooing gooing gone everything else healthy in tank good advice thanx.. i was thinking of just sacraficing that zoo for tanks sake thanks

Are you guys sure you aren't talking about INTERCEPTOR?
It's being used as a treatment for AEFW (Acro Eating Flat Worms) with great success but I doubt that it would do anything for the zoa fungus.

[650-IS350]

Interceptor is only used for REDBUGS and doesn't kill AEFWs.

[Korrine]

no photos of affected colonies??

[Pufferpunk]

This thread is from 4 months ago.

[Korrine]

I know. But it's been around for 4 years actually w/much discussion and No one has posted any pictures....

so is this was melting is? The polyps close and then it disappears?

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg200/kj23502/sw%20tank/PB140278.jpg

[Pufferpunk]

Yep, are you having this problem too?

[Korrine]

AND it's in the zoanthid information draft and will keep getting "hits" :)

This colony is half wiped out. I lost a purple/green cat eye and watermelon to.

[Korrine]

My water is testing just fine.

[Pufferpunk]

Did you read my information about vitamin C dosing?

[Scott-CapeCoral]

My pink zoas are the only ones that have done this. I put them in less light and it stopped spreading through the colony.

[jordan3548]

I have never had a problem with this until I added a UV Sterelizer so i think its true they like dirty water

[alexandrie]

i think that zoa melting is related to water conditons, i heard that zoas grow more successfully in water rich in nutrients and macro elements, my theory is that very clean water with 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate could be harmful for zoas. those elements are helpful for xooxanthellas and cellular growth.
Vitamin c is a source of carbon which is one of the macro elements as Nitrogen and phosphates essentials for coral growth and metabolism. This may explain the amelioration seen after the addition of vitamin C
I started lately to add nitrogen compounds to raise slightly my nitrate level which was zero as i had the problem of melting despite excellent water parameters

[Pufferpunk]

How does this explain then that when VC is added, it reduces nitrate, yet improvres zoanthid health & growth?

[alexandrie]

My idea is that a good carbon source will increase phosphate consumption by xootanthellas thus increasing coral growth and reducing phosphate levels in water.this may explain how vitamin c works.

I think it is all a problem of equilibrium between Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphate proportion.
too low nitrogen will lead to bad Phosphate consumption by cells

Too much phosphate is as harmful as zero phosphate etc..

I can t deny the utility of vitamin c in the treatment of melting zoa syndrome.
But we don t have the full explanation of its mechanism of action.

[Pufferpunk]

Have you seen where some are thinking that since VC helps build collagen in cells, this may be the reason for improvement?

[alexandrie]

I read this in your thread, i know that vitamin c is helpful in building connective tissue in humans thats sure, i don t know if it has the same effect in corals
vitamin c has saved my colonie the first time they melted. a real miracle.

[Pufferpunk]

Isn/t collagen, collagen, no matter what "being" it's in?

[kasayre]

Here is another observation of mine that makes me go huh? I try to keep the water in my 55 as nearly perfect as possible. I have a refugium loaded with chaeto, sump with a decent skimmer,sqwd on return,I test weekly,15 gallon water change every 2 weeks with RO water and I feed my zoas zooplankton every 2 days. I have 250 watt 14k halides. I dont get that great of growth. A couple colonies do good but for the most part its pretty slow. Now the wierd part. My girl friend also has a 29 at her house. Its got alot of live rock,a seaclone that doesnt do much,and 110 watts of PCs.Jebos to be exact. Shes always had a pretty big problem with red algae on her rocks and sand and glass. She never does water changes and she tops off with tap water. Weve never done any testing to her water other than salinity. Every Zoa frag Ive given her does excellent in that tank. Double my growth. Are the high nutrients that cause her algae blooms feeding her zoas? It sure makes me think so and I just wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

Our nitrates are always 20 no matter what we do and we've lost a couple colonies, so i don't think dirty water is a plus. No pests that we can find, now my african blue hornets are withering... Only 3 left

[jake918]

Anybody who has zooanthids should also have a UV sterilizer. Zoos are very succeptible to bacteria infections and a UV sterilizer will help control the bacteria in the water. I have seen on multiple occasions the "shriking zoos" problem solved with a UV sterilzer. GET ONE, trust me.

[zooty]

Isn/t collagen, collagen, no matter what "being" it's in?

yes
collagen is collagen regardless of the source. Though there are about 20 different types of collagen