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Zoanthid disease/pest - cutting off at base???


bues0022

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I have a mystery pest/disease with some of my zoanthids. They start to shrink/not open as much, then it looks like they are cut off at the base. By the time I find them there's some brown goop coming out of the bottom, but I think that's an effect and not a cause. Any ideas? I did pull a zoanthid spider off of them a couple weeks ago and did a FW dip of all zoas at that time, but this has sped up since then. Any ideas? What should I do?

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While I’m on the topic of zoa pests, does anyone know what the difference is between betadine and Lucila iodine (besides the first is 10% and the second is 2%)?

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I didn't even think to take pics - it wasn't very exciting to look at shriveling up zoas. I ended up finding some instructions on R2R, and I did a 10% HP/RO dip for 15 minutes, followed with a swish in dliute SW/Lugols solution. Back in the tank for a day of recovery, then repeat again tomorrow. They all look pretty pissed off this morning, but hopefully they pull through.

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I checked the water after the dip - nothing visible on the bottom of the bowl besides pods. Maybe it's a bacterial/fungal infection? That would explain why I'm not seeing anything crawling on it, but seeing them shrivel up and pop off. They looked REALLY pissed last night - hopefully I didn't nuke them by trying to fix them!

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There are zoa eating spiders, which are not as common since they don't reproduce on their own. But if they do start to reproduce can become a nightmare.

There are different kinds of slugs or flatworms that aren't studied by even us hobbiests much. These normally become the color of the polyps they favor and don't do anything but irritate the polyps really, which can cause problems eventually. These are very small and move very slow and not many people know to even look for them.

There are zoa eating nudis which also take the color of the polyps they eat.

Fungus is another issue that can spread rampant in a zoanthid tank.

There are even pods that can keep zoanthids closed when in large numbers.

 

Each one of these needs their own method of irridacation and their own dip that works best.

 

 

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I did pull a zoanthid spider off of them a couple weeks ago and did a FW dip of all zoas at that time, but this has sped up since then.

 

 

Some zoanthid-eating spiders lay eggs inside the zoa polyps.

 

spider_on_zoo2.jpg

 

This isn't my picture, but this looks like the kind of spiders I've found on zoanthids in my QT. They're very persistent. I've done revive, Dr. G's, FW rinses under a blasting faucet, and manual removal. This campaign reduced their population to nearly zero, but every now and then I find one.

 

Dr. Shimek wrote an article about sea spiders back in a 2003 issue of Reefkeeping. He notes that some species deposit their eggs inside the host, and the young munch their way out after they hatch. I don't know if my sea spiders behave that way. I've viewed my 

sea spiders under magnification and this species carry eggs masses.

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Photos would help. I would dip in Bayer. If anything comes off pest-wise, dip all zoa colonies every 3 days if possible. If no pests come off, think about treating for zoa pox with Furan. Kinda hard to guess what it might be without photos or water parameters... but there are some places for you to research. All this is assuming your water is good.

 

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Zoas are the only thing affected. Actually, only 2 of my 3 frags. The two that are affected actually started as 1 frag, then a big chunk "let go" so I glued it down to a new plug. The zoas in question were from a reputable source, but bugs happen. 

 

They seem to have stopped "being cut off" as I described it. But it's been a while and they still aren't opening much. My assessment at this point is that I went too long with the HP. There is at least one polyp open per frag, so they should pull through eventually, but I'm not going to dip again until they look recovered, and then I'll do a much shorter HP dip if things still look rough.

 

The spider I had definitely looked exactly like the one Jon posted, and hopefully it didn't lay eggs inside :( Looks like I'll postpone gluing the frags onto my base rock for a good while so I can pull and dip/tend as necessary.

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No I think it's the other way around, the sps are interfering with your zoanthids, bring them to me and I will take care of them :)

Kidding obviously, I am still wondering how I can bring myself to get rid of my collection like I said I would... Way harder than I thought...

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I never figured out exactly what it was, but I did an extremely aggressive dip: 15 minutes in a solution of 90% RO water, 10% HP (the regular HP from walmart), followed by a swish in iodine water (2 drops of betadine (which is I believe 10% Iodine compared to Lugols which is somewhere around 2-3% I believe) in 2 cups of tank water), followed by swishing in the HP solution, then back in tank. The zoas didn't open up for almost 2 weeks, and the ones that looked rough before the dip completely melted away, but I haven't had anything since, and new growth is already pushing out faster than before. I think it might have actually been a fungal problem, not an actual creepy-crawly pest.

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