zoas alive?

the frag came from my LFS
and thanks i will have a look at that
i may have found my problem tho :s and it aint good!
easy to sort out tho hopefully
unless the water was contaminated in the tests it looks like i may have some ammonia and nitrate in my salted water :s
will get the LFS to test their water when we get some more

oh dear LFS giving out dodgy water,
no doubt they will say it isnt them.
maybe using cheap salt in there water.

well they're quite a big store so many people will be having problems wont be just us so thinking get water and get my water and their water tested then see results for myself and go from there
could it be the containers they're in? they were new containers when we set up

dont think the containers will leach,I buy all my water on a fortnightly basis,
but I always test my water from the LFS just before I put it in to double check
its ok.the reason I asked where you get the rock is sometimes if you get a
system with very high nitrates the rock stores nitrate like a sponge,then when
you get it,it leaches the nitrates out into your system.this is why some people
have trouble getting nitrate out of there systems as they dont realise its in
there rocks too.with the size of your water changes if you bought good salt
Like D&D then you would just buy the RO off them and mix it yourself,that way
you know you are running the good stuff.

The Liverock would leach out that much nitrate and certainly wouldn't leach out ammonia otherwise it would be liverock anymore as ammonia is fatal to marine life especially small creatures such as copepods.

I doubt the problem is your local fish shop water as they would be seeing fatality rates going up within their systems too.
I'll will be fragging some nice zoas at the weekend so I see what I can do and possibly keep a few for you. Don't count on this though as fragging often never goes to plan.

15l system a rock from a tank with high nitrates an ammonia could def do this,
that rock would be displacing a good amount of water...where else would they be coming
from with no livestock??
one reply(from a well known reefer) to a poster having problems with high nitrates and ammonia after adding new rock was this:

Even though you buy it to remove ammonia, and even though it may have been sold as "fully cured", it's not unusual to have some of the organisms on the rock die if it's exposed to air (as it's taken out of the water to be weighed), moved from the store to your tank, and exposed to differences in water chemistry. And as the organisms on the rock die, they produce ammonia.

And if your live rock wasn't cured, you'll get even more ammonia produced.

The rock still has enough bacteria on it to cycle the tank - and the bacteria need this ammonia for their energy source, since you don't have fish to be producing wastes yet. Just keep an eye on the tank chemistry, and the live rock will cycle your tank in a shorter time than not using live rock or sand. You can speed the process along a little by increasing the temperature of the water (80-84o if you don't have inverts) so the bacteria multiply faster.

Talking from experience rather than reading has opened my eyes to quite a few things, You should know this from owning a cleaner wrasse.
I moved over 50 kilo of rock in no water and had no problems when I added my fish a few days later.

no your missing my point,
my point is if the rock came from a nitrate/ammonia
rich tank then it would bring these chemicals with them.

???????? Never heard of this ????????

Google the reef forums, tons of posts about it.

well the system has been set up since 15th jan so would this not have been enough time for it to cycle?
have got many copepods crawling around so maybe its my readings that are wrong?
also another thing to point out is that my other zoa frag is doing well...all heads are open and there is a tiny one growing slowly
also the rock the frags came on were tiny...frag one about 3x1x1cm and rock two 5x3x3cm

What kits do you use to test, an another thing mite be the pods crawling on them which bothers them stopping them from opening.but could be worse,I got some zoa eating pods in my last tank lol.they maybe are just taking there time in opening out

well nothingd being eaten and have got the salifert test kits

Well next water change test the tank before and after and also test the water your putting in.that will show you what's going on in ur tank.
Could all be just another cycle,did you test the nitrite lately

will do and yer nitrite was 0.025 when last tested

water paramounts getting much better now
unforunately that cant be said about the zoa...it is now totally transparent so think tis dead
on the other hand my other zoa frag and mushy are looking good

transparant, some of mine were like that but that was because they were in
the sump for a few weeks with no lights(didnt know they were there)
they came back.Raise the light up higher and keep up with the big
water changes, they can still come back.

will do
thanks for the tips

most info from the specialist zoa sites say a zoa getting dark and
dying is lack of light but going transparent or bleaching is too much light.

hmmm interesting because its at the bootom of the tank next to the other zoa which is doing well and i only have the standard light for the tank which wouldnt be able to sustain LPS or SPS wouldnt have thought
unless there are some that dont need much light?

yeah thats exactly what happens.some zoas like little light and others love tons of light.
there is ment to be a way of telling but I cant remember atm.reading a reef book the
other day and they say main cause's are Fluctuating pH caused by erratic water changes, or not enough.
Very low nutrient levels. A little nitrate actually helps them grow.
Low mag or trace elements will stun them as well.
and done bulbs.

ah cool
when you remember let us knowvplease
and they not to hard to keep tho...just balancing the minimal things i personally think
when you look at some other corals they seem firstly easy and secondly bullet proof

yeah they are easy, get ur levels right and they grow like weeds lol,
found the site again btw, it says the brighter the colours the lower the
amount of light they need.

Yeah thats correct Phantom.
Zoas among some other corals are bright because its a pigment that acts like a sun block so in theory the brighter the light the brighter the zoa but they will reach a point that the light will be as bright as they can handle.

ah fair enough that makes sense