Corals in trouble?!

BabyShark

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Hello
I’ve had my tank for about 6 months and recently added some corals. They seemed to be doing fine the first few weeks. I recently had a brown algae bloom, but it settled down after changing my lighting schedule. One of my zoa colonies have closed up a bit and I noticed brown stringy stuff on them and some white stuff. I’m still relatively new to corals so any help would be appreciated!
22C649C5-F9C4-45B3-B350-B2C95EBC646E.jpeg
 

Greatdane

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I’m new to corals to and I have the same issue I got new coral and my zoas are closing people said that they are weird and they just close up but they also said how they can take a while to acclimate so he’s probably doing that how old is it
 

NewGoby

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Your zoa's are very bothered by the algae in between & on top of them, which is preventing them from opening.

Please post your water parameters, and lighting schedule.

For now you can use a turkey blaster to try & get some of it off the zoa's, or even small pliers, it's usually what I do if I get a zoa frag that's bothered by algae
 

CuzzA

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Assuming water quality is good, closed zoas generally is the first sign there is a parasite, like zoanthid eating nudibranchs. Quite common, especially if coming from a LFS. Do a search on how to do freshwater dips. Pretty simple. Match temp and ph. See what turns up.
 

Greatdane

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Your zoa's are very bothered by the algae in between & on top of them, which is preventing them from opening.

Please post your water parameters, and lighting schedule.

For now you can use a turkey blaster to try & get some of it off the zoa's, or even small pliers, it's usually what I do if I get a zoa frag that's bothered by algae
Are you talking about mine or his
 

CuzzA

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I don't see any terrible algae in your pic. Zoas are generally dirty water corals. We have them growing under bridges among various algaes. But, I just re-read your OP. You changed your lighting so I would expect to see a reaction, in this case it appears it didn't like what you did. Coupled with an algae bloom you eradicated, it may now be keeping too much light.

As for the second pic from greatdane. I do see some algae that should get blown off, but more importantly it appears the coral is at the top of the rock work and getting far too much light. Zoas are generally kept at the base of rock work. Like I said, they literally grow under bridges around here.
 

Greatdane

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I don't see any terrible algae in your pic. Zoas are generally dirty water corals. We have them growing under bridges among various algaes. But, I just re-read your OP. You changed your lighting so I would expect to see a reaction, in this case it appears it didn't like what you did. Coupled with an algae bloom you eradicated, it may now be keeping too much light.

As for the second pic from greatdane. I do see some algae that should get blown off, but more importantly it appears the coral is at the top of the rock work and getting far too much light. Zoas are generally kept at the base of rock work. Like I said, they literally grow under bridges around here.
Thank you
 

dieselkeeper

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I have 2 tanks. One that can grow zoa and palys and the other can't. Carpet Anemone tank they shrink and close up. It also has mushrooms in that tank. Once i move the palys back to the other tank, thay stert to open up and grow again. Both have same lighting and parameters. Haven't figured it out yet. Sorry I'm no help.
 
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BabyShark

BabyShark

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Thank you for all the replies!
I have changed my lighting from 10 hours to 8 hours. It now runs with a timer from 12pm - 8pm. This was also due to my montipora bleaching. Not sure if it’s salvageable. Aside from the one zoa colony, the other zoas my mushroom and my frogspawn appear to be flourishing. My galaxea also seems to be closing with the brown stringy stuff on it though.
I will post an update with my parameters tomorrow!
 
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BabyShark

BabyShark

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971DCCE8-1CC8-407B-BD18-C8741C6A4BD7.jpeg

I tried taking a photo of the brown stringy stuff. Sorry I don’t know the correct term. Could it be dinoflagellates?
 

IndianReefGuy

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Have you observed the tank after the lights go out? I had an infestation of Zoa spiders that wiped out 90% of my zoas... could only see them at night using the light from my phone and forceps to pluck them off each head. I found 60 in my little bio cube 14... and haven’t bought anymore zoas...
 

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