Zoas won't open fully about 2 months
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I do not dose anything, just use reef crystals as my salt. Well until this issue happened I did water change like every 1.5 to two months , everything was doing awesome, since the issue I'm thinking maybe something with water so been doing weekly, 3 changes so far. You dose nitrate?
twilliard
Tank pests..
You know, I got thinking, since i got into the hobby all i heard is "you got to get rid of your nitrates, nitrites, etc" that is why we have sumps and skimmers. Theoretically, instead of dosing potassium nitrate, if I shut off my skimmer for few days, would that bring up the nutrients or do you think that would cause more harm than good? I do not have a doser, so if I dose then I have to do it manually, wouldn't that be harmful to have a drastic change say from 0ppm to 2ppm nitrate?
joshporksandwich
Zoa addict
you need more nutrient. maybe add a few more fish. The usual normal parameters alk/dkh 8-12 cal 420-480 mag 1350-1500 phosphate .005-.020 . If you can keep everything steady around there you should be ok. Also make sure lights are not too strong.
twilliard
Tank pests..
In my opinion these are two different things
Organics
Available nutrients
The skimmer does a great job at keeping organics low and that is what we strive for.
Now at the same time these DOC's if not pulled will eventually break down in the forms of no3 and po4. But its the po4 I do not want in the tank.
So if you skim efficiently this helps to keep that nasty po4 down.
This is where no3 takes a big hit. As said you can add more fish, feed more or skim less.
This as a whole will increase your po4 and the chance of unwanted issues.
Zoanthids take a big hit in low available nutrients.
Organics
Available nutrients
The skimmer does a great job at keeping organics low and that is what we strive for.
Now at the same time these DOC's if not pulled will eventually break down in the forms of no3 and po4. But its the po4 I do not want in the tank.
So if you skim efficiently this helps to keep that nasty po4 down.
This is where no3 takes a big hit. As said you can add more fish, feed more or skim less.
This as a whole will increase your po4 and the chance of unwanted issues.
Zoanthids take a big hit in low available nutrients.
Hm, so it sounds like a very delicate balance, why I don't think it's lights is because everything was growing doing well under the same light, but as my tank matures I think the nutrients probably got used up and zoa starving, what about my montipora it started bleaching, same reason? Do I need a dosing device to dose k nitrate?
Have you considered flow? Twillard With that kind of corraline there should be good food no? Nice grunge in the corner of the tank too.
Not sure id keep messin with the params yet really. Have you moved the corals around in the tank at all? the lighting does seem uneven(an fts would help there) the color quality seems good if the corraline and other algae is there.
Right now id say youll need to dip em peroxide(thx btw T) or iodine to get the algae off them. itll be hard to say if theyre happy if you dont.
and put them on the sand. Usually a healthy zoa will let you know they are unhappy in a day or three. me experience anyway.
Big Bummer about this hobby is finding what the animal likes. Ive been having pretty good luck with zoas lately, for flow med to slow turbulant (even more slightly laminar in some cases.) is a good starting point.
Last edited:
ECreefer
Active Member
Honestly, looks like your zoas are either adapting to the light change or you have some kind of po4 issue as indicated by the cyano. This usually means that you have detritus or some kind of compound that isn't being broken down by the bacteria. I would do smaller water changes, so you don't remove too much nutrients from the tank at once, and focus on cleaning areas you don't normally clean. Basting off rocks to get detritus out from inside of them is a good idea too. Also a lot will settle at the base of rocks, or dead spots in the tank.
I have completely changes light setups before or moved zoas into different tanks with different lights, and have seen them shrivel up or close up for extremely long periods of time ( 2-3 months). Eventually they opened back up and adjusted just fine. They are very hardy
I have completely changes light setups before or moved zoas into different tanks with different lights, and have seen them shrivel up or close up for extremely long periods of time ( 2-3 months). Eventually they opened back up and adjusted just fine. They are very hardy
Well if it's lights why would corals grow and doe very well and then suddenly close under the same lights? I did forget to mention I switched flow close to two months ago from koralia to jebao rw8 wave maker but corals seemed ok for a while, but since this issue I've been playing with flow and lights tried all kinds stuff settings without success, tank is actually pretty clean terms of algae grunge
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