Zoas and Palys aren’t opening up….

[fatoldsun]

I have 2 small tiles with zoas and a small rock with palys. A few months back I added a Singapore Angel that I had “rescued” and it seemed to be harassing the 1 zoa tile – “whacky watermelons” - they were red. It seemed to leave the green apples and the metallic green palys alone. It also ignored my hammer. I built a small egg-crate frag rack that was more like a cage and moved the 2 tiles and the paly rock in and left them there for a couple months. I added a few monti frags – no issues there. So the Singapore seemed used to the tank and wasn’t going fater anything. The family was pretty attached to the angel so it became clear to me the Singapore was going to be around for a while. I decided to try to move the zoas and palys back out into the tank. They had done well in their little cage - it was very close to the surface so I’m guessing they liked being that close to my relatively weak 150W HQIs. Also should mention - the day I moved them I replaced by bulbs with new Phoenix 14Ks. That was about 2 weeks ago and they haven’t opened. When the Singapore went after them before I moved them, they were being cleaned off the tiles and the angel nipped at them. This is different because they are all still there but they are not opening. If I can’t keep zoas while I have the angel I can come to terms with that but I’m thrown by what I’ve seen. It has left them alone and they are staying closed. Could it be harassing them but not nipping therefore they stay closed but remain present? Or could it be the movement from the light? Any other thoughts? Anything in particular I should test for? I should also mention that I added a kalk reactor about a month ago and levels have been responding nicely but my ReefKeeper II pH has been going haywire - I tried a new BRS probe and tried calibrating a couple times and I’ve had no luck. Anyway when I tested manually I noticed pH is a tad high – like 8.4-8.6 (I think – it doesn’t help that I’m colorblind in the blue-brown-black grey area – my test goes green-blue-purple so I’m guessing a little) – could high pH be the culprit – is that worse than I thought? It still all happened the day I moved them – the other stuff was already done in advance of that – the only change other than their location/proximity to the lights was the bulbs themselves…..

 

[MadReefer]

Try moving the back where they were prior to the move and new bulbs and see if they open. The extra light intensity could be why but I am not sure.

 

[mnat]

How old was the bulb you swapped out, was it also a 14k pheonix? Light shock can keep palys closed like that. Flow is also important, but it does not sound like that changed. It could be a pest, but if you have not added anything new you might be able to rule that out. I would move them down (still covered with the cage) and give them some time. A revive dip certainly would not hurt either.

 

[fatoldsun]

Thanks for the tips - I can't say for sure what the bulbs were (the ones swapped out) - they came with the tank package when I bought it last fall - they weren't used until late this summer and (like everyone always says) they had "3 months of use" - well I had it in my head to change them or switch to LED - budget right now pushed me to change the lights and hope to upgrade to LED before the next change.
They had some dyno (or algae, but judging from the descriptions of dyno and the bubbles I saw, I think dyno) when they were in the cage (most of my CUC couldn't get in either or could have been the "new" plastic) so I dipped in CoralRX before the move - could dip again if you think it would help. Not sure I want to go back to the cage and not sure I'd put it on my rock - whatever issue I did have was isolated to the cage, tiles and glass right where it was 'suctioned' - i'm afraid putting the cage on my rock would be a lot harder to correct if the same type of bloom were to pop up again....

Flow should be ok - I have 2 mp40s on a 90g - probably too much I keep them at maybe 30-40%

Madreefer: do you think if the intensity was the issue that they would slowly adjust – the new lights may be more intense but they are further away (back where they were before the angel was added so they should be ok in that general area with other lights which were supposedly the same.

Thanks guys!!

 

[mnat]

Algae on zoas can keep them from opening. A dip followed by a light scrub with a toothbrush or a q tip would help. Generally if they are getting algae issues on them it is from lack of flow.