Whats going on....

[Ryan_Lap]

Can I have too many pods that some of my zoa clusters are becoming irritated and not opening? I looked tonight with a flashlight and noticed tonnes of pods scattering around in the zoas. Its really only 2 groups of zoas hat arnt acting right and all others seam fine. Both zoas acting up have been in the tank 1.5 months + and have been growing, ect. Anyone have any ideas LMK. Thanks

[The-new-guy]

are they being bothered during the day by pods as well? or just at night? I can see them being closed at night ( no light and creatures crawling all over you would make you close up as well :biggrin:). The only time I have heard of pods bothering a zoa is when they are dead or have parts of them that are dead or on their way out.

What other type of livestock do you have in the tank?

[Ryan_Lap]

The zoas are closed during the day. The one colony is completely gone now and the other appears to be shrinking. Livestock is 2 clowns, 2 bangaiis, 1 Powder Brown, Lawnmower blenny, cleaner shrimp, emerald crab, various cleaner crabs and snails.

[ElGuappo]

my nano contest tank has an insane amount of pods and i have never seen them bother anything. not at night or during the day.

[Ryan_Lap]

Yah its weird. They just appear to be melting. Ive had zoas melt before but that usually happens within a week of first introducing them to the tank, not over 6 weeks or so.

[untamed]

Cause and effect... I would guess it isn't the pods bothering the zoas...it is the dying zoas attracting the pods. Something else is going on.

[Canadian]

Sounds like your zoas are dying and the pods are coming in to clean up the mess.

You might want to check your tank parameters to see if things are out of whack before any other corals are affected. Also look for zoa eating nudis and their eggs.

[Ryan_Lap]

I have over 25+ diff types of zoas and only 2 clusters are acting up....I never thought about the pods cleaning up the dead zoas, makes sense. I recently checked the parameters ( a few days ago), everything appeared to be fine. Hopefully it turns around, I guess sometimes zoas just act up.

[Ryan_Lap]

Anyone have a micro pic up zoa eating nudis?

[Chaloupa]

They're small, blend to the color of the Zoa and lay many many eggs....this is NOT my picture...and I didn't see a copyright on it...just the photographers logo...so hope I haven't done anything wrong?

http://www.pbase.com/ppphotography/image/73581914/original.jpg
http://www.zoaid.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=683&g2_serialNumber=2

[Ryan_Lap]

OMG I just found one>

I was just looking at the zoa cluster below my one thats going out and noticed and bright orangy thing in it. Sure enough its a nudi. I got it off and cant see any others ...for now. What do I look for as in eggs and how do I eradicate them?

[Chaloupa]

OMG I just found one

OH NO...that totally sucks if you have that many Zoa's in your tank...I feel for ya!

[Ryan_Lap]

Well lots of them are smaller right now, but not very easy to find and some are quite $$$.

[Canadian]

You're going to have to either quarantine all your zoas and treat them or remove them all to dip them to kill the adult nudis and scrape off the egg clusters. You'll then have to repeat this process to be sure you've removed all the missed nudis and any missed eggs.

Here's a link showing pics of different nudis and what their eggs look like: http://images.google.ca/images?q=zoanthid%20eating%20nudibranch&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Then look here for more info on treatment and prevention: http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=184

[justinl]

haaarrrsh. Well I would do exactly what Canadian suggested if i were you. There are also a few wrasses out there that eat zoa eating nudis. For the record, nudibranchs are very very specific predators so I wouldn't be surprised if the nudis are showing preference of one colour of zoos to the other; they'll probably move on to the others once they finish their favourite colony though.

[Ryan_Lap]

Well it seems to be red. I just lifted my red colony and I can see a bunch of eggs. Others seem to be fine for now. It seems Im going to have to transfer the others.

I have my nano I set up, but Im sure its not cycled yet(havnt tested water). Anyway I can put my good zoanthids in it to get them out of my main tank?

[Ryan_Lap]

Well the 2 colonies that were on their way out and the colony I found the nudi on I removed from the tank. What are the chances I have gotten ridden of them by doing that?

[kipsix]

Well I've been reading this thread since it was started, and look what I found in my tank today.....

Does this guy look like the ones that eat zoas?

[Chaloupa]

Could be one that eats Zoa's...you don't know until you see it on the coral, what it's preference might be. I had Montipora eating Nudibranchs...that was really awful....I'd be inspecting colonies of Zoa or any other coral in the tank!

[Ryan_Lap]

I have another group of zoanthids on their way out it appears. Im almost 100% sure I got out all the nudis. I woke up today(not being home for 2 days) to this:
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii239/Ryan_Lap/diamond.jpg

They look like %#@!. Im wondering if I should dip them? I cant see any nudis or eggs on them like the others. Anyone with experience with zoas have theirs just wither like this occasionally?

[Canadian]

Try a freshwater dip and see what comes off.

There are so many possible culprits that the only way to tell would be to see what comes off in a dip - be it nudis, spiders, etc.

There are also some pathogens that obviously won't be determined by a freshwater dip. I would peruse the zoanthid forum on RC and maybe post there just for the sake of getting a more focused audience.

[Snaz]

They look like %#@!. Im wondering if I should dip them? I cant see any nudis or eggs on them like the others. Anyone with experience with zoas have theirs just wither like this occasionally?

Dips will not get eggs, I think the only way to get the eggs is to manually remove them.

[Ryan_Lap]

I cant see any eggs or nudis tho. The 2 other groups of zoanthids that had eggs were removed from the tank. They kind of look like they do when they expel their waste after I target feed them, but way worse. Ill just keep my eye on them and possibly dip them later tonight if they dont look better.

[superduperwesman]

Dip