I believe you are absolutely correct in broad terms here with nutrition and starving Zoa's. However, I have had nutrient levels range from 5-p03 and .03 p04 to 57p03 and .81 p04 between two tanks which still exhibited the same symptoms of stress with Zoa's which is why I felt the saying the low nutrients starves the tank idea was a little inconclusive or vague.
Interesting, but I do not know anything about this product and i couldn't find any info of the actual medication in it. Have/had you tried other bacterial products to treat your issues before using STN-X? I all but threw the kitchen sink at these Zoa's when it came to bacterial, fungal, and parasitic treatments including a few different anti-biotic treatments with no real success, but who is to say it was even a bacterial problem to begin with in my case.
As I have reported in this thread, my tank has no filtration, no skimmer, no sump. Still zoa melting issues.
Yes, most if not all of the ATI ICP tests were in the mid 90 percentile but I had one at 98% during the on-going issue. I am very certain there are all kinds of reasons that Zoa's will not do well, but I also firmly believe purely based on anecdotal observations that the mystery melt when everything appears to be in good order stems from some lack of trace element depletion or perhaps a wayward ionic imbalance that interrupts the Zoa's metabolic process. Just wish i knew what ones
Well it's definitely not Iodine or Strontium. Because this are the two elements I'm dosing right now (old ICPs showed depletion). I still don't believe they are bioavailable or required elements for corals.Yes, most if not all of the ATI ICP tests were in the mid 90 percentile but I had one at 98% during the on-going issue. I am very certain there are all kinds of reasons that Zoa's will not do well, but I also firmly believe purely based on anecdotal observations that the mystery melt when everything appears to be in good order stems from some lack of trace element depletion or perhaps a wayward ionic imbalance that interrupts the Zoa's metabolic process. Just wish i knew what ones
Do you do Iodine daily, weekly or monthly out of curiosity?
Yes, I have tested several times for stray voltage and even run grounding probes in the tanks. As far as Chloramines I have never done a personal test. I do run a 7 Stage RO/DI unit so one would hope that would never be the case but I guess a test or two couldn't hurt!
Between the 20 or more ICP and ICP/MS test I have sent in one would assume it would have shown up if that were the case.
Candles for sure around the house, but the tanks are pretty much isolated in the basement, so I would say its not an issue.
Daily. After you mentioned daily iodine dosing I thought it's worth a try. No dice.
Just for conversation, my large Zoa tank is using .8ml of iodine per day or about 16 drops. I assume most of that is being reduced by other processes than simply consumption but it was a lot higher than I was ever expecting; again, this is being verified by monthly ICP/MS. So what I am saying is iodine can still be depleted easily with only a few drops per day if you have the need for more. Also, the first few months of dosing Moonshiner's my Zoa tank needed a large amount of Boron, Bromine and Fluoride, all of which still need monthly correction doses. I feel like Fluoride was a big contributor to the initial turn around of the Zoa tank.
16 drops? What would be the recommend dosage. I am using 1 drop of Tropic Marin pro coral iodine. That's already more that recommend, but the bottle is quite old so I think some iodine is already inactive. The solution is still of amber color though.
I have a colony rock (6 mos) with Palys and Zoas. The Zoas have grown steady from tiny volunteer pups. My mature Palys suddenly a month ago had a brown melt and now many seem to be struggling while the Zoas thrive. The colony rock has some vermetids but no other pests that I think affect corals. It's in a moderate flow 90 PAR area that aminos, flake and mysis pass thru.
I have seen a recommended starting dose of 3 drops per 100 gallons, but with my heavily stocked zoa tank I am going to be close to 1ml per day of Iodine to keep levels around .05/.07. My other Frag tank which is also 100 gallons just stocked less only needs about 7 drops per days for the same levels.
What I have learned going through with the Moonshiners program is it is pretty obvious that some of these elements are quickly removed from from the system, whether it be from skimming, Carbon, or oxidative reduction. For example, my main tank needs 3ml per day of Manganese and Cobalt. I just do not believe that any "All in one" product could possible meet the unique demands like these for our tanks.
Maintain daily dosage levels and do monthly ICP-MS testing until desired levels are reached and sustained. I have tried the Salifert Iodine kit but I feel like its pretty much garbage. I started with three drops and kept increasing after each ICP-MS test comes back low.
90 par could be a little low for some species as they appear to be stretching a bit, but if they are closed up I've seen Zoas do the same thing even in high 180ish par; so who knows. It appears these frags are on your sand bed, and you said moderate flow, but can you post of a video of the flow maybe when you dose your Aminos? I am really starting to lean towards faulty flow patterns within some tanks that are leading to these mysterious melt backs, because at this point I have really dialed in my tanks and still have a few hiccups here and there. A common problem alot of us Zoa heads seem to have is some frags are dying while other a few inches away look like a million dollars; there has to be come kind of correlation with that.
That's the same recommended dosage as my bottle mentioned.
