Why are my eagle eye zoas dying? Please help.
 

Why are my eagle eye polyps dying?

A while ago I posted here about a blue worm that appeared for seconds. I also then posted about an odd worm looking thing on the front of my aquarium glass. This should be the first picture.

Since then there have been a steady appearance of about 3 small tan worms a week in the top back corner of my tank. This should be the second picture.

The worm looking things are the only thing I can think of that made things any different before my zoas started dying off. It could be unrelated for all I know.

I noticed one day, an entire section of zoas that had been doing poorly were gone off the rock. My tank contains one pink cerameco Rock and my small rock with the zoas. So for them to be gone was surprising to say the least. There are no hiding places.

I then noticed another section dying off very fast within the next few weeks. Again, when they were gone they wound up showing nowhere in a very open tank. In the past, some of the zoas would fall off, but I was able to see them and to glue them back into the holes in the rock and had them thrive.

So the disappearance of polyps altogether that, granted, were not doing well, but were not dead is still disturbing.

I knew I was in trouble a few days ago when the ones on top started shrinking. They are the ones that always did well being closest to the light on top. It's hard to tell from the picture something's wrong, but relative to how they used to be, they have shrunken dramatically. This should be the third picture.

This is the process that appears to be happening. The tips start to turn black. Then they are dead and gone within a few days. Totally gone. The fourth picture should be a closeup of one of the polyps going through this.

Also, as of this past week, a white algae or white mold is starting to cover the substrate. I have had algae problems but never white. I am wondering if the dead polyps are getting somehow semi pulled under the substrate so I can't see them and they are growing the white mold. This should be the fifth picture.

Again the only inhabitant of my tank is this one rock with eagle eye polyps. It did come with hitch hikers. There are vermetid snails and red tube worms. I take out the brown worms when I spot then and put them into a small goldfish bowl I have. (The bowl contains asterina starfish that also hitch hiked in, but I kept finding them on the zoas way back in May. There were aiptasia too; but they died off within 2 months once I moved then into the bowl.)

I wanted to include everything I could think of because I don't know what may be a key piece of information. Sorry it's so long. Please help if you know what's wrong.

Also please keep in mind when you're looking at my pictures, my pictures always seem to post sideways against my wishes.

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

Maybe they're lonely?

Or hungry? What do you feed a tank with only a couple zoas on a rock?

Actually, I'm guessing ALK/PH swings.

Dip them?
And check your alkalinity. s/.b between 7.9-8.3 DKH.

Photo 5

What is your water quality like?

Are all of the spots on them like you can see in pic3 just air bubbles? Or are there white pimple-looking things on the stems too? (zoa pox)

When the worms mature in your goldfish bowl, do they develop like flaps on the body and look fuller? (zoa eating nudibranch)

What size tank and what lights do you have? Looks like they are streching for more light.

Can you post a pic of the whole tank?

I fed phytoplankton, then stopped because the tank made its own massive amounts of algae causing a vermetid snail explosion. Then I tried zooplankton which honestly seemed to make it worse. All along I had led lights that were extremely high output (people told me it was overkill, and I can see from the algae problem they were right.)

As for the alkalinity and ph. I tested every week. I did notice the levels were heading towards the borderline, but never dipped past the safe level. Today is the first time I did a alkalinity test that failed. I was shocked. In one week, it went from 6 to 5dkh. The ph is 8.3. So the alkalinity speculation seems right. But what about the month before when the polyps were dying off and the alkalinity was still in the safe zone at 6dkh?

I don't see any white spots, just the air bubbles that seem to cling to them. Once I move the brown worms to the fishbowl, they dont seem to thrive. There's one living on the top above the water line. The others, I don't see. I'm not sure if they make it in there for long. Definitely not growing larger than worm size since I can barely find even the one.

6 is low
I keep this chart on my phone, it's a good ideas of the ranges you should aim for. I've noticed that when I add a new frag it can suck up a bunch of alk, like they come in hungry. I just do bigger water changes until they settle in, so I don't have to dose.

I mentioned the poor 5dkh dip this week and 8.3 ph for water quality. There is no ammonia registering and the calcium is at 360. I have been giving them "reef fusion 1" with "reef fusion 2" once a week which is a "two part system to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels". I also add weekly fluval sea trace elements and fluval sea iodine.

I'd quit the iodine, and elements at least. Really you shouldn't need to be dosing anything, water changes should more than keep up with a few zoa. Especially not stuff you aren't testing that could be harmful if it accumulates like iodine and "trace elements."
Do you have enough magnesium to keep the ca and alk from precipitating?
What is your water change schedule?

It is a 20 gallon tank. I have a zoo med Aqua sun led ho 24". Forgot to mention I check the salinity weekly. Today it was higher than normal, 1.0255. I will post a pick of the full tank lit.

Full tank pic

Wow, thank you cstrickland, for that chart. The alkalinity test I use is tropic Marin, and it says 6 is in the safe parameter. Let alone that mine fell to 5. I guess 7 should really be the minimum.

I actually don't add or test magnesium. It would make sense then if that was a problem. I'll skip adding te iodine and trace elements and switch to testing for magnesium instead. And I guess I'll add magnesium if it's low? I'm not sure how the magnesium figures in, but I'll definitely look into it.

I change the water either 25% once a month, or sometimes 33% a month broken up during two weeks, if the algae gets all over the substrate and rocks. For a while I had so much green bubble algae, it was on the rock and actually grew over a polyp and killed it. Then there was the red slime algae that would get on the outside of the polyps. Then there was the hair algae that got on everything. Now this mysterious white "algae?"

My guess is the alkalinity for sure. My zoas crashed before because I did water changes but no top offs. So my levels just rose up because I was adding more alkalinity and salts but did not add fresh di water from evaporation. Since then my alkalinity is typically at 11-12 but everything else is steady and all of my softies love it. Are you using rodi when you do water changes or tap water? Tap water can have copper or other harmful chemicals in it.

Lights arnt causeing them to die off like that but that deff isnt enough light, its only 10 watts.

I think I do tend to neglect top offs more than I should. So I should work on that. It may sound odd, but I use aquafina water rather than tap water. As for the lighting, the type of high output led that I have is "50% brighter than T5 HO fluorescent fixtures", according to its description.

The only way to tell if aquafina is decent is to check with a tds meter. I have seen some bottled water that had higher tds than tap. You can buy ro water at walmart for a couple bucks for 5 gal. There is usually a water machine in the back

Im not an expert on leds but when zoas have long stalks like that its because they need more light. You may wanna ask about the light in the lighting forum.

Neither Aquafina nor RO drinking water are intended to be pure h20. They have plenty of non-reef approved stuff in them for flavor, and to save on filters cause it's expensive. If you are goin to buy water, "distilled" is ok because that is for steam irons and stuff where evaping and concentrating minerals and metals would be a problem. You can get a tds meter to check that the water was made right, hasn't picked up copper from the pipes etc. but all it gives you is a number, which could be all copper or something not-bad. Tds just tells you if the filter is working, not whether the water is safe.

That light has 12 x 1 watt and 6 x .5 watt LEDs. My cheap light has 165w per 24" of tank. Maybe you could move the corals up higher and see if they like it? I agree they look stretched a little.

I change 10% water weekly. I think it's better to spread them out for stability, but after a year I'll prolly back off to 10% every other week and see how it goes.

Also, do you have any powerheads in there to move the water?