Zoa help
 

I have a 29bio cube with cree LEDs. It seems no matter what I do, or where I purchase my zoa frags from they don't seem to last!! Any suggestions on what I may be able to try!!


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what are you using for flow? I had some issues with zoos at first , added more flow and they all started doing great

What kind of lighting are they getting? Alot of zoas dont like alot of led light. What are your tank perameters?

Not much flow as I currently have them on the bottom. I water tests good, ph and alk are a little low, working on getting them up right now


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Iodine and Magnesium are key. I have 43 types of zoa and paly and lost alot getting used to keeping them. I have a red sea max with cree led's as well and lighting can be crucial. If you have a controller try dimming the whites down and slowely ramping them up.

How low? Get water parameters under control, how much lighting do you have to little or to much could be bad. I run a sol blue on 100% 10 hours a day everything is good, thats on a 30 cube everything is in bottom half of tank.

Ph is reading 8 :s what do u recommend using to bring that up?


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For me it was more air exchange in my living space in the winter. We would seal the place up from the cold and ph would drop to 7.8 now i leave a window cracked open all the time. Never goes below 8.1. I actually owned a co2 monitor and inside was getting up to 1000 ppm co2 and outside is around 400ppm.

8 is not bad, under 8 i never liked

Honestly i think zoas don't really care about any perimeters and they grow no matter what but i find when i feed tonnes they are way happier and grow more. Zoas are low light corals but can very easily be acclimated to high light that is equivalent to what sps like. In both my tanks i have grown them but i have much better growth and colours in my big tank where i feed a tonne more. I also found that the LED/T5 combo grows way better then just the T5's on my little tank. In my frag tank which is 14 by 10 I have 2 kessil 150s (yes i know way overkill but who cares) I don't get as much growth with just the leds as i do with the combo, but then again I'm not feeding it like i feed the display so i can't say for sure what they like. As for the flow mine are scattered from practically nothing to super super high.

Ive always thought of zoos as being super resilient so I'm surprised yours are dieing. I would think that there is something outside of what your looking at thats affecting them. Do you have other corals in your tank? How are they doing?

I know that's why I'm unsure why I'm having such a problem with them :( kinda a pain in the ass. All other coral is doing great it's just the zoas http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/20/asy3udad.jpg news are closed up cuz I just fed


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Oops also forgot i give my zoos 1 piece of mysis per day in the heads and the next day ill see 2-3 new heads overnight

my friend

rule number one of reefing....before messing with water quality look at the reasons that dont effect your water and system as a whole like predators, placement, flow etc. none of these things will mess with your water chemistry.

get out the ol flashlight at 3am and look for nudibranchs....snails, crabsw, fish etc. all can eat or irritate zoanthids.

theres more to corals then just water quality , and if its just the zoas that arnt doing well , and they are slowly declining then my best guess would be natural predators in particular zoanthid eating nudibranchs.





cheers


denny

Yup +1 definitly

Thanks, I'll have to have a look because it's really getting annoying :(


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i also wouldnt rule that little hippo out , more times than id like to remember ive seen them demolish zoas:)

I had large amphipods munching on my zoas before. Killed a few colonies before i figured out what it was. A corris wrasse and a melenarus wrasse fixed that problem really quick.

Pulled out the flash light and found 15 or so of these guys all over my zoas. Amphipods? http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/20/ezesetyj.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/20/7u3ezyje.jpg


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Yep those are amphipods alright! Same exact problem I had. A corris or melenarus will take care of them.

I thought they were good for your tank? Ha ha though wrong I guess. Got some chaeto in the back chamber, isn't that where they thrive? Should I take it out?


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They are good for your tank, but only when they are small. When they get big like that then they become a problem. And ime they only get that big when they don't have predators keeping them in check. I added a wrasse, and after 2 days never saw another amphipod again.

Would a six line work as we'll?


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6 line would probably work as well, however I wouldnt recommend one of those because they are fairly aggressive and don't get along with to many other fish. They also seem to like jumping out of the tank.

I read up on the 2 u recommended but it says they shouldn't be kept In a tank with a crushed coral substrate as I have. What's ur opinion in this? Any other wrasses that wouldn't need a sand substrate?


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Im not to sure on the crushed substrate really. I know most wrasses that will be of any help usually need to go into the sand. People have been able to keep these fish in bare bottom tanks by just adding a little container of regular sand for them to go into at night. If it was me, I would probably put a container of sand in as well, and give the fish the choice. If it doesn't like your sand it will go into the finer stuff. I was also told they didn't like fine sand like my black sand. But they seem to have no issue with it at all. Also wrasses will pick at feather dusters, bristle worms and some snails. But the good out weighed the bad for me. Thats just my opinion though, I'm by no means a fish expert.

Will be making a trip to the store tomorrow that's for sure, thanks a lot for the help.


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No problem glad to help, let us know how it goes.