help with zoas

So the first pic is about a month after I bought my zoa frag. As you can see they were extending perfectly and looked amazing. Lately, not so much. They also aren't growing very fast (I know it takes patience, but they haven't even covered the plug and it's been a few months). There are a few concerns/questions I have.

First, in the pics below you can see black specks on both the frag plug, and on the polyps. What are those specks?

Second, it looks like my polyps are two different colors. The ones that are fully opened are darker and don't have the neon green around the edge. The ones that are more appealing to the eye IMO are barely opening. What could cause this? I've tried several locations in my nano over the past few weeks and they were moved to the current location in the pics 2 days ago. They are opening slowly since the latest move, but they still don't look as good as they did for the first several weeks when I had them. Any tips/answers are appreciated!

I tested the water as I was typing this and the parameters are as follows:

Temp: 77° - 79°
SG: 1.026
pH: 8.1
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0

First Month:



Current Shot:



Specks on Plug:



Specks on Polyp:

 

I would dip them and see what comes off. The color morph I can understand, it happens. The stubby shirts is a concern.

You have ruled out the usual suspects right? Are you seeing any Amphipod activity at night on the plug?

Nudibranchs
Asterina Stars.
Spiders.
Sundials.

 

plus one

also, how much light is hitting them? My experience has been they don;t do as well in VERY high light

 

Once again, you've saved my zoa's! Last time your keen eye spotted a nudi and that solved the problem. My lights just changed to my moonlight LED's so I decided to take your advice and watch the polyps like a hawk. Every night when the daylights go off about 5 min. later half the polyps close up (same ones that aren't fully open). I could see some small critters crawling around on them so I got my flashlight and surprise, they aren't pods. I'm assuming they are associated with the black specks on the plug, but I think they might be nudi's? Not sure because I don't have much experience with the other 3 critters you posted above. Couldn't get a clear pic but I'm going to dip them again. Thanks again!

 

Oh good.

 

Alk??

My alk was high for weeks, recently started doing 90% water changes and my zoas are open again.. Obviously there is something more to yours because of the black specs but since you didn't post the alk figured I'd throw it out there.

 

I was going to test for alk/mag/cal but didn't think it was necessary because my GSP are showing absolutely no change in behavior. I thought if one of those parameters was out of whack my GSP would show some change. Even if just a subtle change I would still notice it because this tank sits on my work desk that I'm at 10 hrs. a day... If the dip doesn't help I will definitely check the alk though! Thanks for the suggestion!

 

So the issue isn't resolved. Every evening when my lights change to moonlight my zoas close up. I got the flashlight again and I can see one or two pods crawling on them. But when I looked closer I could see very small black specks and a few of them are moving around. I don't know if I should dip them again? Or is there a limit to the amount of dips over a short period? The other option I guess would be to get them with a baster, which will be more difficult given how small they are. I use CoralRx dip

 

zoas infested

So I went ahead and dipped them again tonight. They're definitely being bothered by whatever critters died off in the dip. There were dozens of tiny critters crawling around the container and they were about the size of a pinhead. I'm not sure what they are because they're so small but I'm thinking the black specks on the frag are eggs.

Has anyone had experience with this that can tell me how often to dip? Also, any idea how long the eggs will last and/or anyway to get them too?

 

Do they look like a mite, as in Arthropod?

Do you have any crabs or shrimp in your tank? If not or you can remove them you can treat with Interceptor Spectrum if these brown spots are indeed Arthropods.