Thankfully I only have one zoa, but I'd rather bite these things in the butt sooner than later.
When I get back home tomorrow evening I'll take the zoa out and dip it in freshwater.
Probably a stupid question, but if you need to balance the freshwater pH with the saltwater pH, what kind of buffers do you use to raise or lower the pH of the freshwater to match the saltwater?
So being a bit concerned about my zoa after discovering I had two nudi's on it, I did a bit more research. I found this great posting in another post, check it out if you have a moment, http://bit.ly/xvnzd9. I did a freshwater dip, and ordered some Lugol's iodine to do another dip. Hopefully if there are any critters left I'll get rid of them.
My only concern is keeping the zoa healthy. How long should I go between dips? Also, how do I know if my zoa is healthy? They zoa is definitely opening up and has very good color in the eye, but the small fingers, hairs (whatever they are called), seem a bit brownish with small hints of green. Is that how they are supposed to be? The zoa was listed as being an eagle-eye morph. I'm concerned a bit because mine doesn't look nearly as colorful as the ones pictured. I know a lot of pics are enhanced though too.
So I have another question, I clean the glass on my tank daily, not for any reason other than I don't want any algae or anything growing on it. One thing I have noticed a lot of in the past few days are these small white crystalline looking things. They are very tiny and wipe right off, but by tomorrow I'll have more. Any idea what these are? I tried to take a picture but of course my camera was dead. If I don't hear back I'll take one later today and post a pic.
I never diped my zoas more than once so i am not sure how lon between dips you should wait but i would def frag that zoa so that incase i lose the colony i can still try to recover the frag.
Ok, I had made a previous post about some little white snow flake looking critters that are all over the walls of the tank. There are also a few larger white "thingy's" but I can't get a good look at them. They almost look like they have a small shell to them. I enclosed a pic of that as well, but since I don't have a macro lens it doesn't look so good. Here are some photos. I've also enclosed some new tank shots as well.
Lastly, here are my current parameters as of 3/18/12
Temp: 79
Salinity: 1.023
pH: 8.2
Cal: 490-500
Mg: 1260
dKH: 7.7
Hmm...ok. Looks like I'll have to give it some time and see what happens. Seems if I don't have any fry or really small fish I should be fine. I'll keep my eye on them though.
So I picked up a new zoa frag today and its starting to open up. It also looks like there might be a small aiptasia on the frag as well. What is the best way to go about taking care of that?
take the zoa frag out of the tank and try chipping off the piece where the aiptasia is on. next time you buy corals from stores, make sure you look around the tank and on the frag itself for any pests...
I looked pretty closely but sometimes they are very hard to see. I figured Manhattan Aquariums would be pretty reliable but I guess you can't depend on LFS to be completely pest free.
I definitely dip, but for some reason aiptasia didn't cross my mind. So whats the best way to deal with it? I ordered an aiptasia x kit online and should have it soon. In the mean time I have the frag sitting by itself in the tank on the sand bed. Hopefully those little suckers don't spread.
Aiptasia is the worst. I had a frag plug with one aiptasia. Now I have about 15 and it keeps spreading. I've glued it, used kalk, joe's jucie and it keeps spreading. I finally just placed an order for some berghia nudi's so hopefully that will take care of them. If I had a plug with aiptasia on it, me personally I would just chuck it now.