Zoanthid coral dying?

[Niterunner77]

About 2 weeks ago I purchased a beautiful zoa frag online from World Wide Corals and it opened up beautifully within a couple hours but I have now noticed that it is staying closed and I can not for the life of me to get it to open back up.... Is it dying? Parasites? This is my 1st reef tank and I just need a little bit of advice. I haven't changed anything in my tank except for a water change about 4 days ago. My water parimeters are spot on in my opinion. Also all my other corals are doing great. I have the zoa placed about midway up in my live rock.

14G Biocube

Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 5 ppm
Calcium: 440 ppm
Phosphates: 0
KH: 180 ppm

 

[ahiggins]

Your chemistry looks good.

In my experience, zoas are super hardy unless it has pox or something like that.
Does it have white specs or white pasty stuff on it?
How long has it been closed? If you have crabs or snails, they will close up for a few hours and open later if they run over them trying to get some food. Also, ime-scarlet hermits will go after zoas. Not all but the ones I had did.

Also, what is directly below it? Some sort of fungia? Or dendros? Just curious, a few lps species will put out feelers and secret chemicals if too close to another different coral.

 

[dbl]

Could be a lighting issue as well...as in a significant difference from their system and yours. Corals need some acclimation time to lighting. Not sure what your lights are. May want to lower the zoas and see if there is a change.

Just a thought.

 

[Niterunner77]

Your chemistry looks good.

In my experience, zoas are super hardy unless it has pox or something like that.
Does it have white specs or white pasty stuff on it?
How long has it been closed? If you have crabs or snails, they will close up for a few hours and open later if they run over them trying to get some food. Also, ime-scarlet hermits will go after zoas. Not all but the ones I had did.

Also, what is directly below it? Some sort of fungia? Or dendros? Just curious, a few lps species will put out feelers and secret chemicals if too close to another different coral.

I haven't noticed any spots or anything white. Been closed about 3 days. I do have red legged hermit crabs and snails. It's a short tenticle green plate coral that is below it . Thanks for all the insight. Might move the zoa toward the lower part of the tank and away from the plate coral and see what happens

 

[Niterunner77]

Could be a lighting issue as well...as in a significant difference from their system and yours. Corals need some acclimation time to lighting. Not sure what your lights are. May want to lower the zoas and see if there is a change.

Just a thought.

I have a nano box reef retro LED light with a bluefish lighting controller. I'm going to move it toward the bottom and I'll let y'all know what happens. Thanks!

 

[ahiggins]

Sounds great! My zoas are happier with no Scarlett's.
I do have red leg hermits. (Their legs are brown instead of bright red)
And they like it mid tank, I also run leds at 50-80% intensity.
Good luck!