Zoas not open

[MadReefer]

I have purchased Zoas and they do fine whne first placed in the tank, all open and look great. After a few days only some open and others don't. Any suggestions as to why this is happening.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[sinkingbeach]

Hey Mark, if they are coming to you and then opening for a few days they are healthy when your get them. I'm really not familiar with your tank, can you please list your tank size, lighting, flow, skimmer and then your water parameters. I would think that would give us a better idea of how to find a solution to your problem. Also have you noticed any critters munching on these zoa's?

 

[MadReefer]

Francis, I agrre its something with my tank. The other coral are doing fine, leathers, frogspawn, hammer and shrooms.
I upgraded from a 55 to 75 about 6 weeks ago. I kept all the water, LR and LS. Here are the parameters from about 3 or 4 weeks back.

Ammonia - 0.2
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10
PH - 8.4
SG - 1.025
Temp - 77
Alk - 300

 

[DaveK]

Zoas are usually very tough. If they will not open, it's usually due to water quality issues or the livestock in the system is bothering them.

Retest all your water parameters. Any reading of ammonia, other than 0.0, indicates a problem. The nitrate reading of 10 is moer than I'd like to see, but usually that is not a critical problem.

Also, a partial water change can't hurt. If you see them perk up after that, you may need to do a lot more water changes.

 

[sinkingbeach]

I agree with Dave, also you want to bring the alkalinity down to 125-200 ppm. It's very possible when you switched over tanks the detritus in the sand was released creating the ammonia and nitrate spike.

 

[MadReefer]

Thanks for the info. Forgot mention I have a 30 gallon sump, run a Phosban reactor. I have a crappy Prizm skimmer but hope to upgrade that soon. I plan to do a water change tomorrow. How do I bring down the ALK?

Mark

 

[sinkingbeach]

I'll let someone else chime in on lowering alkalinity, I was having difficulty raising mine and after chasing it with chemicals for sometime I recently did a 50% water change to get my parameters back in check.

 

[concept3]

An interesting read I found pertaining lowering alkalinity in a reef tank. As with anything we do in our closed loop systems, the slower the better.

I'm not one to pretend about knowing all sorts of stuff when it comes to fixing and knowing about tank parameters, so here's a link that I found it in. It's originally by Albert Thiel

http://saltaquarium.about.com/gi/dy...http://www.athiel.com/lib2/tips/lowering.html

 

[MadReefer]

Merv,
Thanks for the link. I think the problem is that my skimmer isn't doing a good job since I upgraded the tank. I recently obtained a Berlin but need a pump.

 

[mladencovic]

If you have stony corals, the easy way to lower your Alk is to simply dose ONLY the Ca supplement (Ca part of two part solutions or Liquid Ca sold separately). Of course dose it only as much as the corals demand it. SPS corals in my 75g will drop Alk from 150 to 100 ppm in less then a week if I do not supplement it.

 

[MadReefer]

Think I may have figured it out. Besides the skimmer being to small, I noticed the leather corals have been closed for a week. This right after I replced my Hydor 3's ceramic shaft with the replacement sent to me. I think the flow is to strong, I tried differrnt positions. Finally turned the pump off and my finger coral is starting to show polyps. I lost my Fiji and my green toad. The yellow toad I'm not sure of yet. Could this be partof the problem or am I just chasing things innthe dark? If it I will tarde or sell the hydor for a smaller one.

Mark

 

[sinkingbeach]

Mark I really don't think that's the issue unless they are right in front of the power head. I'm using a tunze 6045 which has to be at least as powerful as a hydor 3 in my 24nano with softies and zoa's in it and the flow doesn't seem to bother them at all. Are you doing water changes, have you tested your parameters, you really should test your parameters daily for at least the next 2 weeks at the same time each day and keep a log of what your numbers look like. It's a pain in the butt as I did it myself when I was trying to get my parameters in check but in the end it payed off, it would also assist us in figuring out what's going on.

 

[MadReefer]

Tested my water today. The Nitrite is a bit high because of the leathers that died. I was able to get half of one, fell apart. The other fell behind some rock and can't reach it.
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - 0.5
Alk - 275
PH - 8.1
Temp - 80
SG - 1.0255

 

[Hawkeye]

While the ALK is high, I don't know if that is the cause of your problems with the tank.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

Maybe the test kit for the ALK is incorrect?

The presence of nitrite in the tank is certainly a cause for concern - it may be a good idea to do a larger than typical water change. One thing to consider is that maybe the nitrite was already up pushing the leather over and causing it's demise.

To me the suspect is the LS. When I saw the tank it looked great - and it just seems like the LS is slowly cycling and releasing the ammonia into the tank causing all of your problems with the corals (which when they die, compound the issue).

I think a water change, continued monitoring of the params should hopefully get you stabilized again. Might want to hold off on adding anything else until the params look good to you.

Wish I could offer more advice.

 

[chessmanmark]

See if this article gives you any insight-
http://www.zoaid.com/articles004.php

 

[MadReefer]

Thanks to all for the input. I no longer have a problem with the zoas. I took the frag and glued it to a piece of LR. I placed it on the bottom, as Francis advised, and they have been open ever since.