Sick Zoanthids

[Richard Kagen]

This is my 1st loss since restarting in the hobby with my 1st mixed reef. I bought a Zoanthid (Eagle Eye?) cluster of +/- 15 polyps from a BRS member who is very experienced. It did not do well almost from the beginning. There are 2 other Zoanthids. 1 big rock colonies that is growing new polyps and 1 2 polyp frag that has gone to 5 polyps in 4 weeks. The Palys and everything else is also growing (Gorgonian is growing like a weed). I tried multiple locations for the Eagle Eye. A week ago I noticed that a piece broke off the main chunk which I retrieved from the sand and glued to a piece of rubble. The new frag seems to be doing well. I tried a 15 min Seachem Reef Dip yesterday, but it looked so bad I threw the main chunk out this AM for fear of infecting the rest of the Zoas.

Water is pretty good from what I am testing:

8.1 PH
0 Nitrates
0.1 Phosphate (best I can tell on the API test)
6.5 KH (up from 5 as I am starting BRS 2 part)
440 Ca (up from 320 with BRS 2 part)
1350 Mg
1.026 salinity
20% water change every other week

Any thoughts or just one of those things? Should I pull the 3 Zoas for a Reef Dip?

 

[MofoCorals]

Hello, try bringing your alk up to 8-9. The alk may have been the culprit. Alk is extremely important in a reef. All other parmiters look good. You should try to keep it stable by testing weekly and estimating from there how much is used by your reef and then using the reef calculator to estimate how much to add daily or weekly to maintain the levels there. Google reef calculator to find one.

 

[Richard Kagen]

Hello, try bringing your alk up to 8-9. The alk may have been the culprit. Alk is extremely important in a reef. All other parmiters look good. You should try to keep it stable by testing weekly and estimating from there how much is used by your reef and then using the reef calculator to estimate how much to add daily or weekly to maintain the levels there. Google reef calculator to find one.

Thank you - 8 KH/Alk and 450 Ca are my targets which i should reach today

 

[aresangel]

The change from 5-8 might be why it is stressed. If it is melting away then it melts away. At least you got a frag ofnit. Zoas are funny because some are more sensitive than others. I lost most of my ked red colony except a couple frags I made and a small patch of 20-25 that didn’t melt. Sudden changes can cause one type to melt away and the rest will be fine.

Check your phosphate test too. I finally switched to Red Sea test kit after api was saying .5 and Red Sea is at 1.36!

I am also confused that you have 0 nitrates but showing phosphates. Curious what the source of phosphates are but they don’t produce nitrates.

Do you have a decent algae bloom right now consuming the nitrates?

 

[MofoCorals]

You want to do it over a period of a week or so. Not right away.

 

[frank180reef]

ALK was brutally low

That said dieing zoos add a lot more turbulence flow

 

[Richard Kagen]

This is all very helpful, thank you. The Zoas start having trouble before i started raising the Kh and Ca. I went way to fast raising these as I believe that I over estimated the system volume by not properly accounting for rock, sand, etc. I wish I had targeted a week to raise levels rather than 4 days. I am now at 8 and 450, monitoring daily so I can start daily dosing once I establish a rate.

When I started this systems I had a huge bag of ChemiPure Elite (left from the old 150 gal systems a few years back, but it was sealed). Ithrew in the sump. I believe that GFO content is why the Nitrites have consistently run at zero even after a cocktail shrimp cycling which could have been the source of the Phosphates I am now thinking. I am building out a new sump adding a second media reactor to run Phosban and Purigen in one and Chemipure Blue in the other. I hear some say that those overlap, but I don't understand why that would be an issue with absorbiotion type filter media like these products - they should just last longer, no?

I do not have any real algae issues. The New sump will have a large refugium and with room to add an ATS if necessary