Mystery Zoa melt, my search for a cure (follow my journey).

[Snoopdog]

That is good to hear! On top of finally having happy Zoas. I noticed a Acro colony explode in growth in just a few shot moths; that was exciting! My flaming Mohicans and the WWC Black Orchids are producing lots of new heads, and that is good news given they were stuck at single heads for a long time.

Are you doing the monthly Rubidium?

What is your daily Iodine dosage?

Did you notice your tank needed a lot of Boron with your initial corrections?

Rubidium is a daily for us.

Iodine is more complicated, we are dosing one drop of ME Iodine every other day until we run out of it and then we will order whatever Reef Moonshiners recommends.

We did have to do a corrective dose of Boron initially but nothing substantial (51ml for two days).

An odd one is Chromium and we are having to dose 12 drops a day of it.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Rubidium is a daily for us.

Iodine is more complicated, we are dosing one drop of ME Iodine every other day until we run out of it and then we will order whatever Reef Moonshiners recommends.

We did have to do a corrective dose of Boron initially but nothing substantial (51ml for two days).

An odd one is Chromium and we are having to dose 12 drops a day of it.

I thought chromium was to remain undetectable and the handbook just recommended a few drops per day per 100 gallons or am I mixing that up with something else?

 

[Snoopdog]

I thought chromium was to remain undetectable and the handbook just recommended a few drops per day per 100 gallons or am I mixing that up with something else?

Under the MS test showing zero, that would be truly depleted. The OES test cannot detect below a certain amount. We are going by the spreadsheet on the daily dosing of it.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Under the MS test showing zero, that would be truly depleted. The OES test cannot detect below a certain amount. We are going by the spreadsheet on the daily dosing of it.

Interesting, good tip. I will have to double check on my dosage of that.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Under the MS test showing zero, that would be truly depleted. The OES test cannot detect below a certain amount. We are going by the spreadsheet on the daily dosing of it.

Just ordered two MS test from RM on top of a few other elements that are starting to run low. These new tests will be fore January's corrections, excited to see the difference.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Under the MS test showing zero, that would be truly depleted. The OES test cannot detect below a certain amount. We are going by the spreadsheet on the daily dosing of it.

When you are having all your Zoa issues what were you using to maintain Alkalinity?

 

[Edgecrusher28]

But you did add fresh life rock? Remember in science it doesn't matter what we believe, but only what change of the same variable/nominator made a difference. Because the rest of your conclusion is the polar opposite to what @Edgecrusher28 now does. He is adding even more elements it seems. You are also running your tank similar to me when all this mess started 2 years ago. Stable, "don't mess too much with parameters" mentality, only rarely adding elements.
After I restarted it with old life rock nothing changed, even thought I did a lot of water changes then, nothing improved. But after a restart with fresh life rock my zoas recover now. Even though my parameters were totally not stable during the first weeks of cycling. I had KH dips from 8 to 4 until I figured out my consumption and calibrated my dosing pump.
My biology in my old tank was probably pretty bad after I dosed 3 different antibiotics to treat my zoas (cyano solution, Chemiclean, Reef Flux) but even then my ICP OES was fine.

When you are having all your Zoa issues what were you using to maintain Alkalinity?

 

[Tavero]

When you are having all your Zoa issues what were you using to maintain Alkalinity?

I am using a dosing pump which maintains KH 8-9. I doubt that is the problem.

My zoa issues also don't seem to be completely over. While a lot of zoas have recovered, not all are doing well.

Alien antivenoms were struggling for 2 years but were maintaining their 8 polyps. Since my restart they are rapidly degrading.

Gorilla nipples are regularly ticked and closed. Every time they are ticked they seem to lose tissue. That was that case before my restart and continues after it.

Fire and ice completely melted in my main tank. Split colony in frag tank is still struggling but seems to recover.

Magicians? We don't talk about magicians...
it's bad.

Most of them were already heavily damaged so maybe they were beyond saving, but the antivenoms actually started degrading after I did the restart.

I am dosing trace nutrients daily. Also iodine.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

I am using a dosing pump which maintains KH 8-9. I doubt that is the problem.

My zoa issues also don't seem to be completely over. While a lot of zoas have recovered, not all are doing well.

Alien antivenoms were struggling for 2 years but were maintaining their 8 polyps. Since my restart they are rapidly degrading.

Gorilla nipples are regularly ticked and closed. Every time they are ticked they seem to lose tissue. That was that case before my restart and continues after it.

Fire and ice completely melted in my main tank. Split colony in frag tank is still struggling but seems to recover.

Magicians? We don't talk about magicians...
it's bad.

Most of them were already heavily damaged so maybe they were beyond saving, but the antivenoms actually started degrading after I did the restart.

I am dosing trace nutrients daily. Also iodine.

I get that, but what product did you use for Alk? I am not suggesting anything was done wrong more just gathering information.

 

[Tavero]

I get that, but what product did you use for Alk? I am not suggesting anything was done wrong more just gathering information.

In my frag tank I'm using carbo-calcium by TM. In my display tank DIY solution of Sodium Carbonate + Sodium Hydroxide.
My gorilla nipples are actually doing better in my frag tank than in the display, but sadly these two setups are totally different in more than a few parameters

Gorilla nipple in DT

Gorilla nipples in frag t

 

[kindafun]

Melting is a mystery to me. I have about 25 varieties of zoas or palys, thousands of polyps in a frag and grow out system. About 2 months ago I increased the pH and have maintained it (fluctuates between about 8.2 to 8.4 now). My Kedd's Reds colony of over 500 polyps melted in about a week, with just a few tiny ones left now. All the other varieties look great.

 

[Tavero]

Melting is a mystery to me. I have about 25 varieties of zoas or palys, thousands of polyps in a frag and grow out system. About 2 months ago I increased the pH and have maintained it (fluctuates between about 8.2 to 8.4 now). My Kedd's Reds colony of over 500 polyps melted in about a week, with just a few tiny ones left now. All the other varieties look great.

Yeah, pH is another one of the parameters that are different in my tanks. While it's around 8.5 in my DT it's only 7.8 in the frag t.
But I think @Edgecrusher28 has already tested the impact of pH and it didn't change anything. I could just dose carbocalcium instead of sodium carbonate though. It would massively decrease pH in my dt

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Melting is a mystery to me. I have about 25 varieties of zoas or palys, thousands of polyps in a frag and grow out system. About 2 months ago I increased the pH and have maintained it (fluctuates between about 8.2 to 8.4 now). My Kedd's Reds colony of over 500 polyps melted in about a week, with just a few tiny ones left now. All the other varieties look great.

What were you dosing to maintain ALK? How did you boost your PH, Kalkwasser?

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Got a little over confident when things were going good! This piece looks good even under white T5! Let’s hope it stays for awhile!

 

[Tavero]

Got a little over confident when things were going good! This piece looks good even under white T5! Let’s hope it stays for awhile!

Uhn. Pretty brave putting a Stratosphere into a just recently recovered tank.
Congrats though.

 

[Edgecrusher28]

Uhn. Pretty brave putting a Stratosphere into a just recently recovered tank.
Congrats though.

I am also going to put an Apex on these tanks to see what the parameters are doing throughout the day and for better overall monitoring. That, with the monthly MS testing and the Moonshine program I am not sure what else a guy can do to take care of his corals.

 

[Stigigemla]

Acropora rules.
It is sad to see but many reefers buy what they are told is the best.
In these cases it is the equipment that keep the water cleanest.
But many corals doesnt thrive in so nutrient defiecent waters.
I tell my customers to only have 1 turnover per hour through the sump and about one tank volume of air per hour into the skimmer. Dont use fleece filters ore aquarium computers.
In that way it is possible to have softies and Zoantides with most stone corals.
And when you examine the values you slowly get a feeling how they fit together.

But if you listen to the Acropora people and buy things for 10 times sump turnover and 3 times skimmer air intake your softies will starve to death.

Most corals need both organic nutrition and inorganic.
The best organic nutrition i believe is fish poop (corals are adapted to that since more than 100 million years) but many Amino bottles are also good.
I believe most of the big coral growers mix their own coral food of fish meat, shrimps, mussels and various other living things from the sea. And check the inorganic values too.

It is not a coincident that the zoanthids did recover in snoopdogs other tank with hang on back filter and no skimmer.

 

[EGorman]

Fascinating journeys, and a lot of useful information, thank you for sharing and good luck moving forward!

 

[PocketGoose]

Do you think I could get away with an addition of live sand from Tampa Bay Saltwater? I don't have much room for LR unfortunately and no sump (AIO). I've had similar issues with some strains of my zoas. Tank was started with dry rock/caribsea live sand and I think bolstering the microbial community would be beneficial.

 

[Righteous]

Curious if anyone has tried triton’s STN-X product for softies or zoas?

I believe in my tank I had some bacterial issue, acros had been overly sensitive and I was completely unable to keep euphyllia (they’d slowly melt, no obvious brown jelly)

I started an STN-X dosing, followed by the recommended month of daily dosing. In addition I started back up carbon dosing and dosing prodibio bacteria dosing.

The combined dosing had a significant effect. I noticed a positive change in growth and color. The one Acro that looked stressed recovered quickly. I also noticed less overall algae on rocks, less cyano growth on sand, etc.

The tank looked so good I decided to try a torch again after loosing two before. This one is thriving at the moment.

Obviously this is all anecdotal, but I did come across this thread talking about STN-X effect on tank microbiome.

Thread 'Triton STN-X | Impact on Microbiome'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/triton-stn-x-impact-on-microbiome.715059/

Im dipping my feet into Zoas for the first time having just ordered some. So will follow this thread.