Newbie would like help with zoanthids

[DaisyDo]

Hi. I just found WAMAS and am so happy to be a member. I have a 50 gallon tank that has been set up for 1+ year. I have a zoanthid rock that I've had in my tank since August and it has been doing fine. A couple of days ago some of the polps stopped opening up. Now they look like they are wasting away. I check my water parameters and I changed 10 gallons today hoping to lower the nitrates. I realize they are a little high.

PH 8.1, nitrate 5.0 ppm, Calcium 392 ppm (trying to get that up also), Strontium 0-3, Magnesium 1280, KH/Alk 5.4/1.94 (little low), salinity 1.0245

 

I would love any suggestions on what I can do to try and save these pretty zoanthids. Everything else in my tank looks fine.

 

To view a picture of the zoanthid rock, please click on this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/robb65347/Aqua...965431414084882

[lletellier]

wait... then do another water change... nothing brings corals back to life like clean water

[lancer99]

DD,

 

Zoas are usually pretty hardy. Have you inspected them closely for nudibranchs & invasive sponges?

 

Have you tried blowing away any detritus that might have accumulated on their bases? You might want to increase the flow on them, just temporarily.

 

How much lighting do you have?

 

Your tank params are fine for zoas, so I wish you luck....they are pretty!

 

HTH,

-R

[gmubeach]

Wamas rocks and you know exaclty hot to post paramters:) Anyway I hope your zoos recover is your temp in reasonable range I had a problem with my temp being too high and the zoos were the first to show. Anyway hope it helps! Welcome

[treesprite]

hi, welcome to WAMAS!

[lanman]

In my own humble opinion - sometimes Zoa's just do that. Your parameters are great. You can try moving the rock around to higher flow, lower flow, higher light, etc. I have had one rock with 200 polyps on it just kind of start to fade away. Didn't seem to be anything I could do. I finally gave up on it, threw it in the frag tank. It eventually stopped dying off, but has never really grown back much, either. It's frustrating, because everything around it, including other zoa's, were doing great. Inspected very closely - no spiders, no pox, no sponges, no nothing.

 

Good luck with yours - they are nice looking zoas!

 

bob

[DaisyDo]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I did another 5 gallon water change today. I keep my tank at 78 so I don't think it's the temp. I've looked really close at them and I don't see anything on them, ie. slugs, sponges, etc. I haven't added anything new to my tank in months so I don't think I've added any hichhickers that would get to them. Oh well....I'll just keep hoping for the best. This is my first attempt at keeping zoa's so I hope they live.

Karen