Yucky stuff in between zoas

[clancaster23]

I my big purple zoa which is grown into maybe the largest piece of rock I have is about the size of a baseball and spreading well but after moving it from my 75 to my 40 it isn't always opening fully like it did in the 75. This leaves me to see some whitish colored stuff that gets in between the heads. I use a baster just to blow some out of there and it goes all over. Is this normal for a larger zoa and should I leave it alone or should I either take a powerhead and try to blow it all out of maybe take the rock out of the tank into a seperate container and do it in there? Or just leave it alone, it's supposed to be like that?

I only have one other zoa in this tank now but it's not nearly as big as the purple one and the heads don't stick out very far from the rock so this isn't happening with it.

 

[RockStacker]

Can you post a picture of the zoas?
It is hard to identify the issue without seeing what you are describing.

 

[Bifferwine]

Sometimes white sponge will grow in between zoas polyps. But you shouldn't be able to blow off white sponge with a baster. RockStacker is right -- a picture will help.

 

[clancaster23]

I'm on day three of my blackout and it all comes off tonight then I do my water change so I'll try to get one tomorrow some time. I took a baster to it and blew away as much as I could out of itjust before I covered the tank up. Now when this bunch was in my 75, it was under my T5 light then under the metal halides. It would always open up fully all the way around and look great. Now that it's in the 40 it really looks like it struggles to fully open up and I positioned the rock that it's on on the side of the tank so I can see the back half of the group and this is where I can see this white stuff that is growing on some of the polyps. I planned on moving the rock around so that this is once again in the center of the tank and hopefully it'll like it but I'll get pics and post them and maybe see what the stuff is before I do that. Just have to wait til tomorrow.

 

[clancaster23]

Ok, I took two shots of the problem area. Basically something white colored is covering a couple of the zoa heads.

This is from the front of the tank

This one is from the side.

There's very low flow on this end of the tank. If I can figure out what the problem is here, I may just move the whole rock or somehow direct more flow if that would help any. You can see the small white dusty looking stuff I was talking about that I blew out a few days ago. Still some there laying but not near as bad.

 

[clancaster23]

No one has any clues?

 

[cvcdrk]

"Very low flow" sounds bad. No idea what I'm even looking at in the picture, to be honest, but I would increase flow to the area and see if it helps. Have you touched the stuff? Is it slimy or hard?
Are they always closed like that now?

 

[clancaster23]

I haven't touched it. I don't want to aggrevate it and risk one of them popping. But yeah, this side of it is always closed up now that this stuff is growing on some of the heads. The other side opens up but doesn't look near as good as it used to . Kind of scraggly if that might describe it. I'm thinking of moving it more toward the center of the tank and putting more flow on it and hopefully that helps. I plan to do a water change tomorrow, I may take this rock out and clean it out real good too.

 

[sen5241b]

Blast them with a turkey baster then make sure they have good flow on them.
Common problems with zoas:

Low light zoas under high light
Zoa pox
poor water quality in general
Some other fungal condition -Furan II dip?

 

[RockStacker]

Looks like a type of sponge.
One of my zoa colonies had that issue before. I first thought that the polyps themselves were sick because they looked like they were bloated, but it turns out that the sponge was trying to grow over them.

This is what I did: (be sure to wear gloves and eye/nose/mouth protection)
1. Take the coral out of the tank, place it in a container of saltwater.
2. Pluck out the sponges and rinse the coral in the saltwater regularly.
3. Use a narrow paint brush (one that has not been used for paint) to scrape away any remaining sponge.
4. Rinse again.
5. Put the coral back in the tank and let it recover.

That will take care of the immediate threat to the zoas.
But you will still need to address what is feeding the sponges.

 

[clancaster23]

Well a few days ago I took the whole rock out and inspected the problem. The white stuff was so soft that it couldn't be pulled off of the heads. I was doing a water change then so I had a bucket of the water and put the zoa end of the rock in the water. I then directed probably a half a cup of peroxide right onto the infected part of the colony. I let it set for a few minutes then rinsed and put it back in the tank also moving it over slightly toward the center of the tank getting a bit more flow. That was probably a week ago and pretty much all the heads are opened up nicely now. You can see the ones that did have the white stuff covering them are open and still have some of the stuff on the stems of them so I am going to see if I can blow it off but otherwise I'm very happy about how it looks now. Just like new.

 

[2XAl]

great news