Zoo Help.....

[DaveJ]

I got a couple great colonies from a guy here and they were doing great in my tank. I go away for a couple of weeks on business and come home and they are closing up on me. In those two weeks, I also had a cyno outbreak, either from overfeeding on my sitters part, or the use of tap water for the kalk solution. EVERYTHING else in the tank is going full out awesome, matter of fact the frogspawn and hammers have increased coloration since then.

Anyway... I added a couple of new colonies on Friday that I got and they were opening fine. So... I did some research here and on RC and decided it wouldn't hurt to do the zoa dip, with lugols and FWE just in case.... and to do all my colonies. One of the new ones I ended up seeing a crab or something in it, so figured I would do them all.

No the day after, some of THEM are closing up. Obviously something is going on and I need to pinpoint it.

My parms as of today.

Temp 79
Sal 1.024
Ca 410 ppm
Alk 10 dkH
Mg ??
Nitrates 5 ppm

They are under 2 250W 14K as seen in my photo bucket... there is a shot of 3 of the colonies.

There was quite a bit of 'debris' after the dips and my nassarius went over the colonies last night as well. None of the colonies smelled or shows any sign of predation or fungus either.

Any ideas ???

 

[Allen Michelle]

david, pls post pics of the closed up colony.

how long has the zoas been closed? If the polyps look fine and not dark colored, there's a possbility that they're "shedding" They do that once a while, close for a day or 2, and shed, and then open back up

otherwise, if they've been closed for a while, looking not so good, take that colony out of your tank immediately and put it in quarantine. Whatever it's got, you don't want it spread... hope it's not too late

you can also take your other colonies and put it in front of the pump, watch to see if anything falls off

 

[DaveJ]

Michelle,

Thanks.. here are some shoots. A few polyps have fallen off, but I think that was in the movement from tank to dip and back in. There hasn't been a massive detachment of any of them. There appears to be no tissue breakdown at all, just a tight closing up of them, like tulip bulbs. Some that were closed earlier today have started to open a bit, but not on a mass scale like I anticipated.

As far as how long they have been closed up... The original 3 colonies.. its been about 3 or 4 days. Like the first comparison below. The others just overnight.

I've increased the flow over them today and the cyno is breaking up (I ran a cyno treatment yesterday as well).

I'm putting in a new sump today so I will end up with a 40 gallon water change by end of the day and will be running carbon etc once that is up as well.

Some additional information. My alk was low last night, I added some buffer and got that back up. My pH is still around 8.1 - 8.2.

The only thing really changed was the 14K, I was 10K before....

This is one before (2 weeks ago)

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This afternoon

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Other colonies today

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[Allen Michelle]

Couple of questions David,

how long did you dip them in FW?
are all the zoa colonies in your tank affected by now?
How far apart are the affected colonies? next to each other or all the way on the other side of the tank?
Were the other colonies affected AFTER you added the new on on Friday?

So lemme see if I got it: you have a couple colonies started closing up when you were away. When you returned, you bought a new one and put it in. Day after that, some other colonies are closing up as well?

I don't know if you can take closer up micro shots, it would help to see if they are fungus.

Possibilities:
Preditors in the new colony. A lot of of the preditors don't die from FW dip.
Fish... some fish might develop a taste for zoas all of a sudden: that includes tangs and angels as far as I know
Crabs would also start pulling off zoas
nassarius is just eating the dead tissue, no problem

disease/fungus. if a colony has disease/fungus, the other colonies might catch it if they're in the path of water circulation.

cyano. In my experience, cyano can cover up zoas and keep them close.

those zoas in the picture don't look like they're shedding. It might very well be a few things affecting them. Water quality shouldn't be a problem.

But either way, if you have colonies unaffected, it's important to separate them from the affect ones immediately just in case it's something.
watch the colonies carefully about 5~15 mins after the lights go off (use a flash light) and also immediately when lights come on. Look for preditors:
http://zoaid.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=384

Watch for the closed polyps getting a milky look, or if they're getting darker, or transparent outer layer, or if they develop white spots. Some of these diseases don't show until days later

I found that keeping strong current blowing at the colonies help.

 

[commandertekki]

Did you say u used tap water in your kalk?

 

[Guest]

You are suppose to use ro water with kalk...tap water has too much minerals that is prob the main reason for cyano in my opinion.

 

[DaveJ]

@na1paj wrote:

The FW dip was for 10 mins, with 4 drops of lugols in 3 gallons of ro water and FWexit.

Pretty much all of them are effected in on way or another, but there are two that seem to be doing better than the others.

I have never seen my tang bother them... or the clowns or the chromis. That's it as far as fish go.

I see no signs of fungus, no threading or mucus like stuff, noting squishy to the touch and no discoloration so far.

Commander.. yes its possible my sitter did that. Haven't been able to get in touch with her to find out or not, but it is a possibility.

 

[commandertekki]

You know anyone that can help you by holding onto your zoos in their tank temporarily until you can clear it up. I'd hate to see ou lose the whole colony.

My only suggestion is to throw away the batch of kalk since you're not sure if it has tap water and start fresh batch with it.... in the meantime, water changes are the only thing I can see help you until it clears up...

Sorry to hear that though

 

[DaveJ]

@commandertekki wrote:

I haven't dosed kalk since weds though... so that batch is long gone. I'm thinking if this does not improve by morning with the skimmer going again and everything else I'll move them into my 29... while the lighting is low in there, it may give them a chance to recover.

Michelle, you mention a shedding, I can see a few here and there that appear to be shedding skin, like we do with skin.

Can you describe that milky or transparency as well?? Some of them look whitish and a few I can see into.. not clear but not opaque either.

 

[Allen Michelle]

so all the colonies affected within 1 day... it's something in the water I'm pretty sure. Not the salinity, or ph or anything. They're getting irritated by "something." Preditors would go from colony to colony, but not in 1 day unless one colony had a TON of them, but then you'd be able to see them very clearly. Not crabs because they wouldn't hurt so many colonies in that short period of time. If your tang's not doing it, then it's not fish.

Although they haven't changed in coloration or disintergrate, if they don't open back up soon, they will eventually turn dark and skinny from lack of food anyway. It's possible they've got some sort of disease, and it's affecting the polyps. It seems like they're strong enough to fight it. Most of the time, the zoas in a healthy system would just fight it and then recover without you doing anything. But sometimes you'd have to cut away the rotten pieces so that they don't pollute your tank.

I would again blast them with good water flow, although not directly in front of the power head, but in the highest flow you can get them. Do a big water change, may be 30% or so depending on the size of your tank.
Then just watch them. If they turn clearish, black, milky, fuzzy, etc, then you'd have to buy medicine to dip them.

I just finished dipping mine in Furan2 from brown fungus. started out with 1 colony, but the ones next to it was affected as well. 2 of them are back now but 2 are still struggling. Wild colonies have a higher tendency to develop fungus in my experience.

If you can, pls take a micro shot. Keep me posted please.

 

[DaveJ]

@na1paj wrote:

I agree.. I think its something systematic. I think I'm going to setup a quick Q tank and use water from the 29. I need a 10 gal for my auto-top of anyway. I'll use the PC's for my fuge to light them and see what happens. Furan2... where I can get some? Is there any other name it goes by?

 

[DaveJ]

Michelle,

I picked up some Fungus cure at walmart (of all places) it contains the same active ingrediants as furon.. nitrofurazone and furazolidone... it also contains potassium dicromate.

You think this would be okay??

I have the QT up and running but need a procedure for the furan dip.

 

[Allen Michelle]

Dave,

I got my furan2 from Plano Pets

hold off on the dip. Watch them for a couple more days and see. If the corals can heal themselves, it's better because the dip can also hurt them quite a lot.

give them a few more days, watch the color of the stem and base. If they look like their getting worse, then it's probably time to try the dip, and I would only try it on 1 colony and see, just in case it's not a fungus problem.

here's an article about the dip: http://zoaid.com/articles004.php

it says for zoa pox, but I experience and read it for the cure of different types of fungus.

 

[DaveJ]

@na1paj wrote:

Thanks... I'm also going to move them to the QT tank tomorrow morning. Just to eliminate the cyno question mark. No cyno in there... I read that article and it actually suggests new water could be beneficial.. so into the QT they go. I'll hold off on the dip until I see something more tangible on tissue breakdown or some brown spots etc.

 

[Allen Michelle]

put a drop of lugol's iodine in the QT may help a little...

 

[melev]

Double check salinity as well.

The images make me think the tank doesn't have enough flow, but that is just a WAG on my part. I hope they get to opening up again because they look really sick.

Did you install the new sump? If not, when you do start using PVC glue, take whatever sections of plumbing and rinse them out with cold water to get as many toxins out of the pipes. You'll usually have one final fitting that you must glue in place, but all the others can be rinsed out to reduce the overall volume of solvent in the system.

 

[DaveJ]

@Marc wrote:

Marc,

Tomorrow night... things were a little delayed due to some unforeseen circumstances. I'll make sure to rinse all the lines as you suggested.

I checked the salinity several times and everything checks out there. I even re-calibrated my refractometer to make sure.

 

[DaveJ]

Okay all colonies are transferred to the 10g QT with 65W 10K and 65W 14K PC lighting. Best I can do for lighting right now until the 150W goes up tomorrow night over the 29 gallon.

Depending on how they look overnight (I am leaving the lights on the QT), I may end up doing that Furan-2 dip and then place them into the 29 because of the lighting... unless someone tells me the PC should be plenty then I will keep them in the 10g.

One sundial fell out during transfer.... checked for more of them along with anything else. No signs of anything else other than a few bristle worms at this time.

 

[Allen Michelle]

soo... how goes the zoas?

 

[DaveJ]

Some are looking better and starting to open again, some are clearly on their way out. The new tank was a definite improvement for them I think or at least the attention they got helped some.

Im optimistic that anything that is starting to open will survive... figure about 30% - 40% loss rate though. Still sad but at least I still have some healthy ones to grow out.