MHTorringjan
New Member
Hi, all,
I recently started moving into coral in my 6-month old tank and have several small frags of easy corals (zoas, Kenya tree, gsp, mushroom, Duncan, and a small favia I recently acquired). 20 gallon tank with 5 fish and several shrimp, snails, and blue hermits. 480 gph powerhead, Nicrew classic led light strip running 100% blue, 35% white for 8 hr per day and putting out between 75 and 100 par across the tank.
About a week ago, a mixed zoa colony that I got from Petco and had in the tank for ~1 month started showing some issues. On one of the zoas (in a higher flow area), one or two of the polyps started shriveling and excreting what I now think is either poop or zooxanthellae. Only change in the tank was that I had cleaned the glass cover and the bottom of the light strip for get some salt creep off. I thought it might just be annoyed at the increased light and so I left it alone for the holiday weekend at lower light, and it didn’t improve, actually a couple more polyps started shriveling, too.
I hadn’t replenished my activated carbon in quite a while, so I did a water change, cleaned the filter out and replaced the carbon bag, and they still didn’t open up. After checking the intarwebz, I decided to do a dip in ReVive and quarantine because I suspected zoa eating nudis. Dip didn’t turn any nudis up (or spiders because why not). I thought I saw some tiny white dots on the stalks of the polyps so I lanced them in hopes that it would help if it was pox (rip Furan-2). Picture of the current state is attached.
As I mentioned, the colony is a mixed one with the pinkish ones that I think are Miss Muffet zoas and the purple-mouth green tipped ones that I think are Gobstopper zoas. The Gobstoppers are perfectly fine and the pink ones are the only ones shriveling.
Water parameters for the tank this started in:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: ~20 ppm
Calcium: 440 ppm
Alkalinity: 9 dKh
pH: 8.1
Phosphate: Below 0.1 (colorimetric API test, sorry that’s the best I can estimate!)
Question is: based on the info above and picture, any ideas what is going on? At this point I’m wondering whether it’s not any ailment (pox, nudis, or spiders) just that the two colonies are competing for space and the Gobstopper is winning.
Secondary question: the zoas had started to grow off the plug and a couple of tendrils have attached to the rock. Can I just snip the tendrils (avoiding the heads) to frag it and remove the larger colony so I can observe in quarantine?
Thanks for any help you can provide!
I recently started moving into coral in my 6-month old tank and have several small frags of easy corals (zoas, Kenya tree, gsp, mushroom, Duncan, and a small favia I recently acquired). 20 gallon tank with 5 fish and several shrimp, snails, and blue hermits. 480 gph powerhead, Nicrew classic led light strip running 100% blue, 35% white for 8 hr per day and putting out between 75 and 100 par across the tank.
About a week ago, a mixed zoa colony that I got from Petco and had in the tank for ~1 month started showing some issues. On one of the zoas (in a higher flow area), one or two of the polyps started shriveling and excreting what I now think is either poop or zooxanthellae. Only change in the tank was that I had cleaned the glass cover and the bottom of the light strip for get some salt creep off. I thought it might just be annoyed at the increased light and so I left it alone for the holiday weekend at lower light, and it didn’t improve, actually a couple more polyps started shriveling, too.
I hadn’t replenished my activated carbon in quite a while, so I did a water change, cleaned the filter out and replaced the carbon bag, and they still didn’t open up. After checking the intarwebz, I decided to do a dip in ReVive and quarantine because I suspected zoa eating nudis. Dip didn’t turn any nudis up (or spiders because why not). I thought I saw some tiny white dots on the stalks of the polyps so I lanced them in hopes that it would help if it was pox (rip Furan-2). Picture of the current state is attached.
As I mentioned, the colony is a mixed one with the pinkish ones that I think are Miss Muffet zoas and the purple-mouth green tipped ones that I think are Gobstopper zoas. The Gobstoppers are perfectly fine and the pink ones are the only ones shriveling.
Water parameters for the tank this started in:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: ~20 ppm
Calcium: 440 ppm
Alkalinity: 9 dKh
pH: 8.1
Phosphate: Below 0.1 (colorimetric API test, sorry that’s the best I can estimate!)
Question is: based on the info above and picture, any ideas what is going on? At this point I’m wondering whether it’s not any ailment (pox, nudis, or spiders) just that the two colonies are competing for space and the Gobstopper is winning.
Secondary question: the zoas had started to grow off the plug and a couple of tendrils have attached to the rock. Can I just snip the tendrils (avoiding the heads) to frag it and remove the larger colony so I can observe in quarantine?
Thanks for any help you can provide!
