Zoas Not Opening

[Coalminer]

I bought a zoa frag from a private seller about a week ago. When I brought the zoas home, I clipped the bag to the side of the tank for about an hour, and they opened back up while still in the bag. I then did a freshwater R/O dip for about 30 seconds to remove any parasites.

I placed the frag pretty low in my 30 gal 19" inch cube, but in direct light. The first day, almost all of the 35-40 polyps were open. Over the past few days, though, fewer and fewer polyps have opened every day. Now none are open.

My light is a Current Orbit Pro 18", which i think should be more than enough for softies. I don't think that a lack of light is an issue. My father-in-law (Coach), suggested putting them in a shaded spot, so that's where I have them now. Nothing is open still.

Any other thoughts on what might be causing them to not open? I took a close look when I picked them up to move them into the shade, and I couldn't see anything on them other than some sand and couple of strands of algae. But I see the same thing on my other zoa frags.

They are Radioactive Dragon Eyes, if that matters.

[Jim28fl]

Have a look at the about an hour after the lights go out. see if they open.. my suspect is water quality. make sure they have pretty good flow over them as well they should have a bit of movement to them when there open which is hard to tell when there shut but you get the idea.. if the frag plug is sliding around too much flow.. if food falls down and just sits on them and doesnt wash off in the current then not enough.

I'm not a ZOA expert by any means.. sometimes i just get ones that melt and never really settle in.. i have one that took literally four months to start to stay open and grow new polyps.

One other one i found my fire ship walking around constantly touching it and closing it up which killed it eventually. Seems he couldn't keep his hands off it i looked so tempting to eat i guess. he never picked at it just touched thru the polyps as he walked by several times a hour maybe.. which kept it closed up and it died.

[ccampo]

Most likely it is the water, too clean or with too much nitrates, zoas don't like those extremes.
Give them more time and they will eventually acclimatize to the water, unless they melt before that happens

[Coalminer]

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to try a higher flow spot. I thought they were getting enough before, but I'll try bumping it up a notch.


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[CoralolisEffect]

How are nitrates?

[Coalminer]

Highish... I ordered a better kit to test nitrate and alkalinity. Right now all I know is that it is between 40 and 80, since those are the delineations on the test strips I have. But if it was nitrates being the problem, I would expect all of the polyps to be affected. As of this morning 3 out of 35-40 polyps are open.

Either way, I should receive this other test kit in a few days and have a more exact number.

[Jim28fl]

if you got a few opening then try n hold out.. don't change anything.. just gather info.. maybe a 10% water change at most. they may be settling in. don't add more light or flow or add any chemicals or go or carbon or anything. if they start turning around the next few days your in great shape.

[Jim28fl]

How goes the ZOA's.... are they doing any better bud?

[Coalminer]

Jim, ended up putting them in a spot with better flow, and then haven't touched them since. They seem to be doing better now. I was down to just 2 open, but as of this morning there were about 14 polyps either fully or partially open. We'll see if the other 20 follow suit.

The lesson I'm learning is "Leave it alone," at least until something more ominous happens...

[Coalminer]

Oh, and to answer Coralolis, I got my test kit and nitrates are at 9 mg/L

[Jim28fl]

Sounds like your out of the woods. You wanna sort of take the mentality that everything you do to the tank is going to set something back and look for what it is right away and make notes. Be it coral growth/color, skimmer function, water stability, hands in the water, moving corals, sand or rocks or cleaning things to some extent adversely effects things. Even water changes can sometimes have a negative effect at first since its a change. all be it a change for the better, its still a change and "things" from the ocean have not seen much change in millions of years. so a little is a big shock to them. what seems minor is never so much so. Especially with dosing "things" i'd like to add.

It doesnt mean never change your water or clean rocks or move corals but it does mean when things are looking off, there is a multitude of possible reasons, usually most are self induced and fix them selves with time. I always have a good look at things before and after i do something and then mentally check off what changed as a result and try not to fix anything till I'm sure i have to. Hardest part i think is coral placement because you can't tell if you moved it and is mad but better, or mad and worse. eventually you get a sense for which is which. Usually error on the side of moving to less light same flow if you have nothing else to go on. I find many corals really do fine in very little light. They can recover to a light situation faster if there on the low side than on a high side. Which sometimes takes months for them to get situated and happy with the increased light. I specifically have a birds nest coral that literally seems to take four months to adjust to light changes. So i try n never move it. Its probably on the high side of its tolerance level in the wild where i have it located but it colors up great eventually. I think this is true for many acropora SPS's as well.

I have two or three corals that open when i put my hands in the water and the rest pretty much run for the hills to some extent. which is a observation. And i also stop my self when I'm about to make a change on something and say am i 100% sure I need to do this and ready to suffer the consequences of changing things on an other wise seeming very happy eco system.. usually i put the bottle back in the drawer and say what am i stupid things are fine leave it alone. Then clean my skimmer or something i know needs to be done instead of trying to dose a bit of gobble goop or move something to a new place.