Help my Zoas are disappearing

I am looking for any help I can get , my Zoas seem to be disapearing one by one. I have lost 2 colonys of green zoas in less than 1 month

Here is how the latest one looked around June 25 or so


and now it is down to just 2 heads. the other one was a frag of 6 heads and it is completely gone.

I though maybe something was eatng them( snail, etc) so I did a fresh water dip on this piece and all my others ( which seem untouched right now) last night and got some small snails, when I dipped a few other rocks there were lots. But I posted in ID this and most think they are "mini Turbos" Sorry cant spell the actual name given, and are harmless. so im back to square one.
Other livestock in the tank:
Clown Fairy wrasse, pair of false perc clowns, tomini tang, diamond goby( goby was not in the tank when this started, and the blue damsel in the pic is gone now also)
Corals are 2 other zoa colonys, hammer, torch, 1 mushroom, candy cane.

I had 3 peppermint shrimp we originally thought were the culprit but have since removed them( destroying the tank in the process) and the same thing is happening. All other zoas and corals seem to be thriving , as this one was until the other frag was completely gone. Any help or ideas would be great

Thanks

 

Assuming that your paras are fine, sounds like you may have a Nudibranch in there. They mostly come out at night, so get yourself a flash light and wait 1 hour after your lights turn off. You need to look VERY carefully, they can blend in very good. They are usually a tanish color, like this one.








Luna

 

I have had the same thing happen and am stumped myself. I am VERY familiar with nudis and sundial snails.. PLUS when you have them the polyps slowly shrivel and get small an eventually die... It takes a while and the polyps typically fail to open being a dead give away... In my case and not sure about yours, I will have lets say 30 polyps and the next day I have 25 or so... NO parasitic invert can decimate a piece like that overnight... Nor remove entire polyps... I will keep looking into it and if I solve my mystery hopefully it will solve yours as well.

Good luck!

 

It has also been reported that some shrimps, like the Fire Shrimp and the Peppermint shrimp can eat only polps, such as soft corals, zoathids and small stony corals.


Luna

 

ya that is why we got rid of the shrimps, as this all pretty much started the day we added them( or at least close too it.) but still going on after they are gone.
The only other thing added to tank about the same time , was some rock( which is why we thought snail hitchers) and the clown fairy wrasse which during the day I never see him near them , and he is the first to go and hide in a cave when the lights go out, so I believe his reef safe tag everyone gives him.

I will check tonight with the flashlight for a nudi, I did the dip about 30 min after lights out last night trying to catch things that only come out at night , thats where my snails came from.

 

Are the suddenly gone overnite or closing up and shrinking until they are gone??

I had a problem on a very healthy zoo frag I bought from my LFS. They would open up for about a week until I noticed they weren't opening up like they did when I first had them. At one point they they all were closed and starting to shrink. I had them placed on the sand bed about 20 inches from my light (check signature) with low water flow. I used Seachem dip and brushed them, but found nothing on them. A couple days later, I placed them up high close to the light, low flow, still closed up. A couple days after that, I put them under an overhang (shaded area) that has good flow. Next day, one by one they started to open. Kinda wierd. I believe I saved them for now. One thing I noticed after they have reopened is that the tentacles on the rim are gone or are short compared to how they were when I first bought them. I'll post a pic when possible...

 

I lost at least a 40 polyp zoo in a matter of a couple days...completely disappeared. No shriviling, no nothing.

I noticed a cowrie I had was there where the zoos had been. So I removed the cowrie and have been getting some growth back where they were.

 

They are just suddenly gone, no shrinking , just open one day and gone the next

I have moved the remaining heads in several differant places with differant light and flow . Not sure just seems to be effecting the green ( radioactive dragon eyes) right now, but im afraid for my other 2 colonys when/if these last 2 heads go

 

I'd wait more than 30 mins until I check for the Nudi. Maybe 1 hr to 2 hrs. Gotta give the lil pest time to see which colony he wants to chew up ;D

 

That sounds like something is eating them. I never had a nudi in my tank, so I don't know how fast they eat up Polyps. I saw a video that showed a blue tang gobble up polyps like you wouldn't believe. He was fast too.. Try to keep an eye on your Tang and the polyps at night. Try feeding the tang algae to keep him full and see if polyps keep disappearing. Let us know.. Good luck..