zoo eaters

[christyf5]

Ok the first batch I chalked up to just one of those things. Now a second fairly large group of zoos is on the down turn. We're talking from 50 polyps down to 5 in a matter of a few weeks here.

Anyone have any ideas? Links to zoo eaters? Yes I'm keeping an eye on my fish :razz:

[marie]

Maybe you have one of these bad boys :razz:
http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm

I heard he found another one recently that was almost as big :eek:

[christyf5]

Ugh thats just gross <shiver>

Hmm, maybe I should look into that panacur option :razz:

[Xtasia]

Hi Christy.. a few questions... are they melting? are the parts of skirts missing.. any polyps half eatten? are they sliming over?

Sometimes when a colony is taken from the wild, the poor water quality stress kills the zoos...
Bacteria
Predators
Water quality
Irritation.

A cure all solution would be..

Cut off all melting zoos
freshwater and iodine dip the zoos.
use a powerhead to blow off slime and detritus.
Check for the brown zoo eating nudibranch crabs or snails... Remove with tweezer.
Do not place on sandbed b/c of spaghetti worm irritation.
Check around zoanthid placement area for possible irritants... ie:// other corals.. feather dusters, spit worm thingies :)
Place in high flow area until opened up and happy again.

In the spirit of Bev..a link. http://www.zoaid.com/index.php?module=pnGallery2&func=main&g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=384

HTH.

[christyf5]

Hi Christy.. a few questions... are they melting? are the parts of skirts missing.. any polyps half eatten? are they sliming over?

Sometimes when a colony is taken from the wild, the poor water quality stress kills the zoos...
Bacteria
Predators
Water quality
Irritation.

A cure all solution would be..

Cut off all melting zoos
freshwater and iodine dip the zoos.
use a powerhead to blow off slime and detritus.
Check for the brown zoo eating nudibranch crabs or snails... Remove with tweezer.
Do not place on sandbed b/c of spaghetti worm irritation.
Check around zoanthid placement area for possible irritants... ie:// other corals.. feather dusters, spit worm thingies :)
Place in high flow area until opened up and happy again.

In the spirit of Bev..a link. http://www.zoaid.com/index.php?module=pnGallery2&func=main&g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=384

HTH.

Ivy to the rescue!http://www.crazypics.de/smilies/figuren/4/0343.gif

From what I see, they are just shrinking, sort of shrivelling up into non-existence.

Awesome link!!! I have two things from that website near zoos, the spaghetti worms and siphonid worms. However they have been near the zoos from the start. Its only since I added some zoos recently that I have noticed any problems but its not *those* zoos that are being affected (thank god, they were pricey!). Its a good thing I have zoo frags all over the place, so far I have had doubles of the munched zoos but I'm starting to worry for my prized ones. Plus they were just starting to mat out nicely and looked pretty darn good :neutral:

Can you give me more info on the iodine dip? Concentration etc? Do I do both freshwater and iodine dip in succession?

Thanks :biggrin:

[Xtasia]

On Shrivelling Zoos..
http://www.zoosrus.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2100&highlight=iodine

This is Mucho's Zoo Dip in a nut shell.

If it is performed as soon as you see the signs in the proper manner, success is always attained.

1. Using a 5 gallon white bucket, add 3 gallons of RO water.
2. Now add 1 or 2 drops of Lugol's Iodine per gallon of RO water.
3. Set your PH to 8.2
4. Set your water temp. at 78 degrees
5. If you have some Flatworm exit made my Saliferts, add
2 drops per gallon to the RO water to kill any Flatworms

Place the colony in the white bucket right side up. Leaving it there for about 5 minutes. Then grab the rock and invert it and place it in the water 3 inches below the water surface. Now twist the rock as fast as you can in a clockwise and counterclockwise motion for at least a minute. While the rock was sitting still in the RO water, it was killing off all bristle worms, Nudibranchs, flatworms and parasites. It will not kill off any Nudibranch eggs so you will have to inspect the rock for what looks like a tiny white 1/8 of and inch curly white piece of thread. They won't detach from the rock as the sack is very sticky. Inside this egg sack is up to 40 or so eggs just waiting to hatch. If you see one, just remove it with tweezers before placing the rock back into your reef. By the way, once you have finished twisting the rock in the water for a full minute, pull it out the water and dunk it back into the water a few times, splashing and swooshing is good, it dislodges anything that didn't fall off in the twisting motion. You are going to kill off a few copepds as well, but this is ok, as you have tons more already in your reef tank and your sump/fug. The dip will not kill your zoos, trust me, if you do exactly as stated above, you will be fine. If your colony is in declined and has been for some time, it may be too late to save them, but if you always do a dip on the first or second day of the problem, I have had a 99 % success rate at saving my own. I don't care what anyone else says, I know what has and will always work for the above issues.

Once you place the colony back into your reef, make sure they receive some current as they will be a little stressed and might slim a little, but that's ok, they will be fine. Your zoos will open in minutes.Always, ....always run your actinics only for the rest of that day. Actinics will encourage them to open. Try not to introduce any food into the system as well until the following day. On the following day, go back to your normal photoperiod. As I said, the zoos will be a little stressed and your 10 or 12k lighting will only try to encourage them to fully expand when they really don't want to right now because of what they have just experienced. I believe the bright lighting after a dip has and will discourage them from opening as soon.

[OCDP]

FWIW,

I have a colony of "mean greens" that shrivel up to almost pin head polyps, and they always do this.. and always return back to the same plump polyps. I THINK they do this when new polyps are forming/growing. This has been my observation anyhow.

Scott

[sumpfinfishe]

Sorry to hear the news Christy, hopefully you find the cause real soon:sad:

If you find any sundial snails, don't nuke'em, as I would gladly take them off your fins.

[Samw]

I had something similar happen. Small patches of zoos would disappear every once in a while. I suspected the Lemonpeel Angel although I never actually saw it eat anything. Now, I feel that I was wrong. Small patches of my zoos continued to disappear and a few nights ago, I found that a few large hungry bristleworms were eating them. I saw one smother a polyp and then a few minutes later to my surprise, I see barren rock. This is one of the reasons why I want to get rid of my hundreds of bristleworms. I use to have an autofeeder but have removed it due to overfeeding. I think the starving bristleworms are now eating whatever they can find that is defenseless. They dont eat all of the zoos, just the ones that had been damaged such as the ones that I had accidentally squished. While eating those, other surrounding ones get damaged and they eat those and so on and now I have a large section of rock where many orange zoos use to be.

[fakename]

Any update on the cause of the zoo recesion yet?? I have a colony also on a down swing so I'm curious......
Good luck!
Aaron

[kien]

Last night while I was looking at my tank I noticed that I had not seen my zoas open up for quite a few days. So, I did a google for causes and found quite a few threads on the subject. Many of them pointing to sundial snails, zoa eating nudis and zoa eating crabs. Just my luck, I had all three!! One of my zoa colonies had a sundial on it, another colony had a crab on it and I pulled out 5 nudibranches. The nudis were quite camouflaged as they were the same colours as the polyps they were eating. I'm sure there are more nudis so I have my tweezers by the tank ready to pull out more as I see them. I would do a dip but unfortunately a lot of my zoa frags are epoxied to my rock work. Tweezing them out so far seems to work well. They are easy to spot when they are on polyps that are closed up, which is usually the case.

Anyway, I thought I'd add this to the thread since I ran into the same thing and thought this would be helpful for others searching.