Zoanthids closed up

WannaRace

Reefing newb
Well, for about three to four days now my Zoas have either been completely closed or look unhappily open/ half-open. Upon further inspection, a feather duster seems to be growing in the middle of the colony. Could this be keeping them from fully opening? And how do I handle the feather duster? Can I just pick it up and move it somewhere else? Should it be buried in the sand? Please advise. Thanks :)
 
You know I have been having the same problem with mine. The only thing with my zoas is that they have these little like sandy brown slugs things crawling around on them. I cannot even begin to describe what they look like as they are so freaking small, and I cannot even get a pic of them. I did an Iodine Dip with them and killed some of them, but the zoas still don't open up fully. Any ideas as to what they could be? I am getting close to just fraggng part of the zoa and just chucking the bigger colony. :frustrat:

Sorry to highjack the thread...:D
 
Can someone direct me to the ID page? At night, I have so many critters crawling around and on the glass that I won't be able to tell what is what without a picture. That's normal, right?
 
You have the ndibraches. They lay eggs that look like little white spirals. I have heard that you should do the dips like you have and the ones that don't die you need to pick of with a tweekers. Then you can use a soft tooth brush to get the eggs off. When you do your dips make sure you splash them around alot. There is a good thread on dipping on RC
 
WannaRace, a feather duster would not be causing your zoas to stay closed. There's something else going on.

Aries, small brown slugs crawling over your zoas sound like nudis to me. Get rid of them, ASAP.
 
Ok so I just took a good look at them and was following the zoas that were closing and opening. It looks like extremely tiny little clear centipede like things crawling all over them
 
From Melev's Reef ID it resembles pods so I guess I shouldn't be worried for now. I will take a look tonight when the lights go out
 
I had those on a zoo frag Somone said they were spagetti worms. They have no natural predators, and a fresh water dip didn't work for me. Mine was only a five dollar frag so I chucked it in the trash.
 
Well, for about three to four days now my Zoas have either been completely closed or look unhappily open/ half-open. Upon further inspection, a feather duster seems to be growing in the middle of the colony. Could this be keeping them from fully opening? And how do I handle the feather duster? Can I just pick it up and move it somewhere else? Should it be buried in the sand? Please advise. Thanks :)

More than likely, thats aiptasia anemone. Small, white or clear in color. The zoas won't open because the anemone is stinging them. It's trying to get out and get to the light and it will sting your zoas to get out.

I had 2 of them on 2 different frags. I CUT them off the frag plugs with an exacto knife. I had to slice my zoa colony half off the frag plug and DIG DIG DIG down into the plug to get it all out. But, it worked. I just glued my zoas back on the plug with CA glue. Good as new after about a week of the zoas being pissed off and not opening.

Aries85-- you got nudibranchs. Kill them!! They will lay eggs and the eggs will hatch. You'll have to dip those zoas several times to completely disrupt the life cycle of several generations of nudis. The zoas will NOT be happy, but they will come back. I'd quarantine them if you can. That will keep the nudis from spreading to the rest of the tank.
 
Well there is a long white tube extending from the zoa colony with feathers coming out.

I took another long look and noticed two red worm-like bugs with what seems to be spikes coming out of the body. How big or small are nudi's? I would have to use tweezers to get this thing out its so small. Anyone have good pics of them?
 
Yep,Aries has nudis.Either dip the zoas in iodine or run tap water over them for a few seconds.


Wanna,I agree with Rc,You probably got an aiptasia anemone growing in your zoa colony.Its sting will eventually kill your zoas if you dont get rid of it.
 
If those nudibranches look like this.............
P4030361.jpg


Be ready to start a long process of freshwater dips.They are tiny,about 1/4 of an inch.They will also take up the color of the colony that they are feeding on.Put a gallon of declorinated freshwater ina cantainer.Set the temp and pH to the display and dip for 5-10 minutes.Get a pair of tweezers and start pulling any egg sacks off.Freshwater and iodine won't kill the egg sacks.Put in QT and repeat every other day until you don't see anymore nudibranches or eggs.It took me about 2 weeks to get them all....good luck.
 
See the thing is, they look like that but on a much smaller scale. It looks as simple as a red worm with spikes as thin as hair lined up its back. I also found little white shells, like snails, the size of a piece of sand crawling on the zoas. But again, much too small to be a sundial snail unless all of these critters are babies still. Which means I have eggs....
 
I had those on a zoo frag Somone said they were spagetti worms. They have no natural predators, and a fresh water dip didn't work for me. Mine was only a five dollar frag so I chucked it in the trash.

Probably not spaghetti worms. Spaghetti worms are several inches long and very skinny, like threads. You'll find spaghetti worms all over your tank. Spaghetti worms are also reef safe, you chucked a perfectly good frag for nothing!

The only time that spaghetti worms can harm anything is when they get too numerous in a zoa colony they can become a nuisance and irritate the zoas, keeping them closed. Freshwater dipping the spaghetti worms will reduce their numbers, but not kill them all.

If you have spaghetti worms, just leave them alone, they won't harm anything.
 
Wannarace,thats a macro shot I took.I mean they are real tiny.The biggest one I saw after dipping was 1/4 inch but most were even smaller than that.Sundial snails are really bad too.I would dip one colony and see what you find.
 
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