What is this Zoanthus doing?

[Lyn]

Yesterday I noticed one of my frags doing something strange. They put out 4 oval white "somethings", and the stalks are shrinking in size. It is only 4 of the polyps on the plug. You can see that the other polyps are fine, although their color has intensified a bit. Here is a blurry picture. Has anyone seen this and/or know what it is doing?

I checked today, the blobs are still there. It seems like all the polyps have shrunken now, though they alll do not have the white blobs.

 

[itsacrispy]

Could they be babies?

 

[Lyn]

Update: More of the polyps have the white blobs and all are shrunken. Does this resemble melting of any kind? None of the other Zoas in this tank are doing this.

Any ideas?

 

[badbread]

No idea, never seen that before. Sometimes mine will stick their mouths out really far but never spit out anything like that...

 

[A_Lee]

When mine were stressed out or irritated they would bell out
I've never seen anything like that

 

[Lyn]

I think I'll take pictures to the mtg and ask the speaker if he knows.

They look like eggs, but I can't imagine that this tiny frag would spawn. :-

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Does look like eggs. When my gsp spawned, the eggs were about that size.

 

[Lyn]

Weird... Why would one tiny frag spawn and not the others? What would trigger this? Will it recover and look like itself again?

 

[badbread]

Oh man, just realized these are Dyngoe's zoa's... I hope mine don't do this...

Matt, what kind of sick, perverted, cross breeding are you trying to pull here? Trying to make another Hasselpaly?

http://www.zoaid.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=3969

 

[Lyn]

LOL I wondered if you'd realized you had these same Zoas.

Don't think you have to worry though, the parent colony and all of the other frags don't show signs of doing this...yet.

 

[Lyn]

Norm,

When your Star polyps spawned, did it shrink back like these zoas? Did it look the same afterwards? Did you have to do anything about it - water quality wise?

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Didn't notice any shrinking, but gsp are skinny to begin with. I didn't do anything about the water either.

Can you get better pics of the zoas and round things? Do they come out free the mouths of the zoas?

 

[Lyn]

Sorry, junk camera Norm. I haven't tried pulling them or knocking them off for fear of hurting them.

I showed the pictures to the speaker. He said he has never seen anything like it. He didn't think they were eggs because if they were, they would be released and float away almost immediately. He thought they were responding to some stress, but found it odd that the other identical corals were not showing the same signs.

Here is a picture today. The coral has been turned around so it is not the same view, but it looks like some of the blobs are shrinking. The stalks are still a bit scrunched, and the open zoas show an intensified hue, but other than that they look slightly better. I'm hoping that in a few more days, they will go back to normal.

 

[FunGuy]

I'd probably turkey baste them off just in case. If they don't come off and the polyps are shrinking, then it doesn't look good. Stuff definitely looks strange.

 

[badbread]

Hey Lyn,
Noticed one of my zoa's was doing this today. Not as much as the one's in your picture, but definitely a white glob sticking out.

 

[pslee]

Those white globs look a lot like balls of mesentary filaments. Hmm... maybe they were puking their guts out after a night of heavy drinking ;D

 

[Lyn]

[quote author=pslee link=topic=5535.msg75862#msg75862 date=1232442720]
Those white globs look a lot like balls of mesentary filaments. Hmm... maybe they were puking their guts out after a night of heavy drinking ;D
[/quote][quote author=badbread link=topic=5535.msg75748#msg75748 date=1232420719]
Hey Lyn,
Noticed one of my zoa's was doing this today. Not as much as the one's in your picture, but definitely a white glob sticking out.

[/quote]

Yup, I think PLee is right. I checked my H2O and found my alkalinity was low. Now that I have all these frags in the tanks (especially the small tanks) I have to keep on top of the water quality alot more. I noticed that some Zoas are more sensitive than other Zoas. I am also wondering if some allelopathy is going on since I now have many different kinds of frags and corals (LPS, polyps, Zoas, softies) in this tank. I also noticed that my mushrooms will do this, although for a shorter duration, if they get squashed by a hermit.

Here is an updated picture of my frag after the water correction.

 

[A_Lee]

Much better