Zoas dying

[KennyKen]

This has occured over the last two days and i have lost two of my favorite, albeit smaller, colonies of zoas.
They are closing up, and basicaly falling right off the rock.

levels are as follow
nitratres 0.1
amonia 0
calcium 380
Alk was bit low, 7,
ph 8
salinity 1.025
temp has been steady at 77, even with the heat in the day.

I cam down this afternoon and see two more, just so happen to be the 2 nicest ones left closing up.

Any idears so i can avoid shedding tears.
(rhyme was intended)

[chris88]

Sometimes zoanthids just melt, because of a infection or somethign that we can see or diagnoise. in my experiance they wont all die, just pathces of colonies and they usually grow back. do a watyer changes and run some carbon and hope for the best.

[KennyKen]

well this was one small colony, the whole thing dyed off, and literally came apart at the plug with in a day or two

my biggest colony is ENTIRELY closed up, and 2 other small colonies are closing up.

I bought a phosban reactor today, and a friend said it might have been the drop in alkalinity that could have done it, but so drastically?

[Zoaelite]

Kenny zoas tend to be very susceptible to ALK swings, I have personally had a few colonies die because of it. It's really hard to generalize what will kill one species over another as zoas are collected from so many different niches around the globe.

I would do a water change and then run some fresh carbon, that usually tends to help. The other option is an iodine dip if it's some sort of pest, have any close up photos of the colonies on hand?

One of my favorites (The one with a long yellow skirt and a bright orange ring) that I got from you just got up and melted the other day. So frustrating to see it happen, sometimes I wonder why they are classified as easy to keep considering my mortality rates over my SPS and LPS.

**actually I just noticed the ones that melted are the ones in my avatar.

I have found from past expierience that if zoes start to close up and die you need a water change 15% should do it. Some times they just do not get along with other corals in the tank.

Bill