OP
OP
My expiration is 6/15/2026.
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Zoas in Trouble, Please Make Suggestions (1 Viewer)
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Cody
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Oh shoot. I’m an idiot. Mine expires on 9/21/26.
webster1234
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mine expires 4/11/26. I'm calling Brightwell tomorrow. Brightwell is the last one I would have thought would pull something like that. That right there really rubs me the wrong way and I want to know what they did. That is an easy way for someone to crash their tank.
webster1234
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Says right here on mine 15,000 ppm. I preach all the time to people not to change products because of the different concentrations and then they do this....
Cody
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Yeah I’m glide I was paying attention to this thread. You’re right. Mixing concentrations can cause problems. Or at least make an obvious announcement on the bottle about the change of concentration.
Tangs
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Be careful they can be hazardous to your health.
Any update on these guys? Are they getting better?
OP
OP
Don't really have a positive update unfortunately. I did end up dosing a little more Iodion last week. Maybe some of my zoas are opening more but they're still not extending their polyps and looking happy yet. Still no improvement on the SPS that have withdrawn their polyps. My toadstool has kinda opened halfway today for the first time in weeks and my Kenya Trees with some imagination might be looking slightly better. That said, a group of zoas off by themselves, Gobstoppers, Sunny Ds, and Peachy Kings, which so far had seemed unaffected by whatever is going on, started closing up and shrinking on Saturday. Totally bummed me out.
I did check my Hanna checkers with calibration standards last week. Phosphate read high. My phosphates have always been high so for them to be lower than they really are doesn't explain what's going on. Alk was right on. No smoking gun with my Hanna checkers. I did order 3 ICP tests to help me dial in my Iodine. I also sent off a Spot Check to SaltwaterAquarium.com today to back up the results from the Triton ICP test from 2 weeks ago and also make sure my other tests kits aren't out of whack.
I'm going to up my water change frequency to 25% every other day for a week starting tomorrow and see what that does. If that doesn't show favorable signs my next step is to start dosing Iodide per instructions and also add some Brightwell Purit which is a combo of charcoal and DI resin. So the thought there is I might have some sort of contaminate not showing up on an ICP test.
The last thing I still haven't tried is the peroxide dip. I have several other different types of corals also affected by whatever this is so I wasn't completely sold on this helping completely but I will now give it a try. I know I could've used a toothbrush but I finally acquired some disposable spoolies this evening so I will start with the easily removed zoa colonies and begin doing their dips tomorrow. Many of my colonies have really established themselves on the rockwork. I may just have to remove what I can with the original frag plug and not worry about what remains behind. Sucks.
Okay, there is one bit of good news. My Inferno BTA split again tonight. It split for the first time about month and a half ago. I got a little freaked out tonight when I was looking at the momma. She was looking all small and mostly withdrawn. Her tentacles where still inflated a little bit though but then I realized she was looking like that because she split! YAAYYY!! One of the splits had hidden itself under the other anemone that was the split last time so I didn't see it at first. It took so long for it to split the first time (6 months) that this split totally caught me by surprise. Sometimes, it's the little things.
Summary of my next steps:
in a hat this one is TOUGH!!
Oh yeah, last thing. My 400 green mushrooms have not been affected by this AT ALL. Hahaha. Sigh.
I did check my Hanna checkers with calibration standards last week. Phosphate read high. My phosphates have always been high so for them to be lower than they really are doesn't explain what's going on. Alk was right on. No smoking gun with my Hanna checkers. I did order 3 ICP tests to help me dial in my Iodine. I also sent off a Spot Check to SaltwaterAquarium.com today to back up the results from the Triton ICP test from 2 weeks ago and also make sure my other tests kits aren't out of whack.
I'm going to up my water change frequency to 25% every other day for a week starting tomorrow and see what that does. If that doesn't show favorable signs my next step is to start dosing Iodide per instructions and also add some Brightwell Purit which is a combo of charcoal and DI resin. So the thought there is I might have some sort of contaminate not showing up on an ICP test.
The last thing I still haven't tried is the peroxide dip. I have several other different types of corals also affected by whatever this is so I wasn't completely sold on this helping completely but I will now give it a try. I know I could've used a toothbrush but I finally acquired some disposable spoolies this evening so I will start with the easily removed zoa colonies and begin doing their dips tomorrow. Many of my colonies have really established themselves on the rockwork. I may just have to remove what I can with the original frag plug and not worry about what remains behind. Sucks.
Okay, there is one bit of good news. My Inferno BTA split again tonight. It split for the first time about month and a half ago. I got a little freaked out tonight when I was looking at the momma. She was looking all small and mostly withdrawn. Her tentacles where still inflated a little bit though but then I realized she was looking like that because she split! YAAYYY!! One of the splits had hidden itself under the other anemone that was the split last time so I didn't see it at first. It took so long for it to split the first time (6 months) that this split totally caught me by surprise. Sometimes, it's the little things.
Summary of my next steps:
- Quit the hobby
- Okay, just kidding on the first one
- Zoa Peroxide dip
- 25% water changes every other day for at least a week
- Dial in my Iodine with ICP testing
- Brightwell Purit
in a hat this one is TOUGH!!Oh yeah, last thing. My 400 green mushrooms have not been affected by this AT ALL. Hahaha. Sigh.
webster1234
Supporting Member
What salt are you using? I used Red Sea coral pro for years and one day, over several months, my zoas started losing color and some, like yours, were closing up and clearly not happy. I was getting kind of tired of the Red Sea anyway due to all of the trash it left in my mixing container so I switched to Brightwell NeoMarine. I started doing water changes with it and over the next few months, all recovered and look as good as they did in the old days. Also, I didn't change anything else. None of my dosing regime or anything.
Also, I talked to Jack Kent (owner of Brightwell) about changing the concentration of their iodide. He said they did that because a lot of people with smaller tanks that were having to dose smaller quantities were overdosing their tanks with iodine. I can get that I guess since I only dose 12 drops for a 400g tank. But still, a little heads up would have been nice.
Also, I talked to Jack Kent (owner of Brightwell) about changing the concentration of their iodide. He said they did that because a lot of people with smaller tanks that were having to dose smaller quantities were overdosing their tanks with iodine. I can get that I guess since I only dose 12 drops for a 400g tank. But still, a little heads up would have been nice.
OP
OP
When this all started I was using HW-Marinemix Reefer for water changes. Went back through my notes and I had done 7 water changes with this salt when all of this started with my candy cane corals in early October. I prefer Tropic Marin Pro Reef but it can be hard to find sometimes so I was trying out HW based on a review by BRS. I have since switched back to Tropic Marin Pro Reef. Today will be the 4th water change with it since switching back to TM. The salt mix was actually one of the first things that I suspected when this issue started. I had done 2 water changes with Tropic Marin Classic before I was able to get some Pro Reef. Also, I do make Alk, Magnesium and nitrate adjustments to the new water before adding it to my tank to get it close to my DT parameters.
That's awesome that the owner of Brightwell actually gave you an explanation. That's very kewl. And it totally makes sense. Making a bigger deal by the supplier about the change in formulation would have been nice though.
That's awesome that the owner of Brightwell actually gave you an explanation. That's very kewl. And it totally makes sense. Making a bigger deal by the supplier about the change in formulation would have been nice though.
OP
OP
I forgot to mention, that I've had some trouble with Red Sea Pro in the past getting consistent parameters in every batch of new water (from the same bucket of salt) so I stopped using it. I will admit though that I have since learned that you need to mix the salt around in the bag when you first get it to ensure that stratification didn't occur during shipping. So that could have been my bad with the Red Sea Pro.
Dang, I’m sorry the zoas aren’t improving I hope all these ICP tests can help you pinpoint the issue so something can be done.
I don’t think all the changes in salt could be very good for the tank. I recently switched salts from the Reef Crystals to Fritz because TAP had a great sale on it for their anniversary and a couple corals aren’t looking too hot.
I’m glad you’re doing the peroxide dip. It seems strange for it to be a water quality issue if some zoas got sick then it seemed to spread outwardly from them. Usually if perams are off for me, I see a general downward trend in all the corals at the same time.
Good luck, and I hope whatever’s going on gets resolved soon!
I hope all these ICP tests can help you pinpoint the issue so something can be done. I don’t think all the changes in salt could be very good for the tank. I recently switched salts from the Reef Crystals to Fritz because TAP had a great sale on it for their anniversary and a couple corals aren’t looking too hot.
I’m glad you’re doing the peroxide dip. It seems strange for it to be a water quality issue if some zoas got sick then it seemed to spread outwardly from them. Usually if perams are off for me, I see a general downward trend in all the corals at the same time.
Good luck, and I hope whatever’s going on gets resolved soon!
