Zoas Won't Open Fully

Z Pol · Apr 13, 2016

Hey I'm pretty new to reef tanks and R2R. I have a 10 gal nano tank that has been going for almost 3 months now and water parameters are good.

I have other corals such as hammers, a blasto, star polyps that are doing great, but my zoas do not look so hot. I can see tiny little bugs I think are amphipods running around and I think they are agitating the zoas. All my zoas were looking weird but 2 colonies have recently started to look better. The rest of the colonies still look half-opened.

I have dipped the zoas but that didn't help as the bugs are all over the rocks too.

Does anyone know how I can help the situation in the nano tank? I've looked up possibly getting a goby or a mandarin. I have a solid population of copepods but I'm sure I will have to supplement them with other food sources.

I have a pic below.

CodyRVA · Apr 13, 2016

Patience grasshopper. Zoas/Palys do this, I have 50+ polyp colonies and for no reason at all 20 or so could be closed up while the others are as happy as can be. In your images, most of the polyps are open, and one or two are closed. If something was agitating them that badly, they would all be closed. If your parameters were bad, none of them would be open. I've gotten new fresh cut frags of zoas that have taken weeks to open up, but once they did they thrived. Just give it time; unless they all close up, and remain closed theres no issue. Pods and things of that nature shouldn't cause enough agitation to make them close up for long periods of time. Pods are a good thing, be happy you have them!