Cr*p!! Something is eating my zoos

[Beverly]

We got several new zoo frags from three different sources over the past month or so and did not dip or QT them. The zoos on a couple of frags seemed to have melted away, and we discarded them when we noticed the problem hoping it wouldn't spread.

Now, however, one our largest and oldest established colonies seems to be going through the same thing. Also, another new frag is displaying the same symptoms.

I looked for nudis on the discarded frags during the day and shortly after lights out, but did not see any. But that doesn't mean they weren't the culprits. We do have a few asterina starfish in the tank, but they aren't anywhere near the zoos when I've looked for pests.

I'm going to have to tear down part of my reef to remove the three large rocks my colonies and zoo frags are attached to. I want to QT them in a 20g after dipping in either fresh water or Lugol's, then dip them again after the eggs, that must be there, hatch.

Questions:

- can I dip the whole large rocks? Will dipping them kill the bacteria and/or other organisms on the rocks?

- how many weeks should I wait between dips to kill newly hatched eggs?

- will three dips over a period of time be enough to kill everything?

'm totally freaked out over this as I've just spent scads of money on these new zoos :neutral: :cry:

Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated. TIA :)

[Murminator]

If they are melting away it is a fungus. I have had this a few times just blast away all the dead tissue couple times a day so it doesn't build up. You will lose a lot of polyps but they will recover. I just went through this with my AI red zoos I had a huge colony that started to slime over, twice a day with the turkey baster and they recovered. Lost half the colony though :cry:. Make sure you do all the zoo cause it can spread.
HTH

[Beverly]

Murray,

There does not appear to be any film or fungus on the zoos. What happens is that one or two polyps from a frag close up the first day, then more close up the second day. The polyps from the first day shrivel up by the third day are are gone by the fourth day.

But now with our established colony (about 3" x 5"), all of the polyps are closed when the morning actinics are on. This is new. Usually, they have been open almost all the time, except on maintenance day when I turkey baste the whole tank including the zoos. Anyway, most of the polyps open up by mid-day after the halides are on, but not all of them. This has been the third day I've noticed the difference in the established colony and it seems to be getting worse.

Tank parameters are Ca - 430 ppm, alk - 8 dKH, Mg - 1380 ppm, pH mid-day - 8.33. No new additions to the tank since the zoos were introduced over the past several weeks. Lighting, water flow is the same as it was in August 2006 when we amalgamated the 67g and 37g into the current 120g.

Found this page on RC that details the dipping proceedure. One post part way down says to dip every 12 days. 20g WT tank, here we come...

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=451720