View Full Version : Zoa Spiders, The battle begins.....
I'll write my thoughts over the coming days/weeks whilst I can still be buggered to keep fighting..... No apologies for spelling or grammar! This thread is also being posted on both side of the pond to hopefully be of use to as many Zoa lovers as poss, so some references might not make sense to some people :)
Ever since my last shipment from the states I have been slowly losing Zoa's, all new additions have always been dipped from the start (as far as I could swear to) so couldn't work it out??? I blamed an increase in Astrina starfish (some sp. are known to eat corals) & I've been picking them out as/when I've seen them....
So far I would estimate my losses to have cost me around the £400 ($688) of corals & I had just about decided to pull the plug, but something caught my eye some time after lights out the other night! We came in real late from doing something or other & I just happened to shine my torch in the blacked out tank looking for astrinas & something else caught my eye on my prized oranges.... A Zoa spider!!!!!!!!
Luckily for anybody thats had these they don't move when a light is shone on them, so I fished it out using a scalpel, the polyp it had been clinging to had a big hole in the side :( I knew now what was causing my problem, but how the hell to solve it???? Like most here in the UK I don't run a QT. Luckily I have a great local fish store who has lent me an old tank (thanks Steve!) So the past 2 days I've been setting up the QT & last night started to remove some of my Zoas I dipped them using Seachems Coral dip at its strongest dosage thinking this might be better than just a FW version. I got about a third done & felt a little better. This resulted in 20ish Zoa Spiders....
Once my lights had been out for a while & again checked the main tank, I could see a couple of more which I got out, something at this point made me go do the same to the ones in the QT in the conservatory, to my horror there was a live Zoa Spider in the middle of a dipped one :( :(
I removed this rock I started to have a good hunt over it, by the time I'd finished about 15mins later I had another 13 Zoa spiders, not good at all!!! So I proved that Seachems Coral Dip is worthless were Zoa Spiders are concerned...
That brings me to tonight, I decided to set up a strong FW/Lugols dip & do or die.... So 4ltrs of RO heated to tank temp & 6 drops of Lugols plus some pH powder, but I think I added a tad too much of that! I then redipped all the ones from last night, this resulted in another 8 Zoa Spiders, but this time they are all dead after the dip, Result! So I then started to remove others from my main tank & dip/check those, ended up with 15ish Zoa Spiders in total & have done about 50% of my main tank & thats where I am to date....
Will see tomorrow how stressed they got over having 2 dips in 24hrs, fingers crossed I suppose? The main problem I've found is there is very little info relating to these ones that like Zoa's, from what I have read it seems the male holds onto the eggs/little un's for a while, so hopefully I should be able to atleast get rid of them on the Zoa's in my QT, the main tank though may cause more of a problem as I have Zoa's on a rock that can't really be removed/dipped because of its size & it has a nice montipora growing on it which has actually fused about 3 different large pieces of LR together.... So I don't know what to do about this. Also I have no real info on how long I will have to keep these Zoas in a QT before they can be returned to the main tank again???
I'll update this thread as & when I have info I think might be useful to others that might find themselves in the same position.....
Cheers Shelton.
good luck mate, I found a few when I got a zoa rock once... looked like something from the alien movie, keep at them and you should win in the end, im not sure if there are any natural predators for these fella's...
Reefer Madness
21-11-06, 14:39
Sorry to hear about your problems mate, what a nightmare, however thanks for putting this up, will be following this one closely, good luck mate.
hope you get it all sorted shelton
Tonights update:
I have finished dipping the rest I want to, tonights "haul" is 5 Zoa spiders, 3 Astrina Stars & a bristle worm! this was from about 15 zoa's.... So it seems maybe they have their favorites when it comes to dinner?
Just managed to get all I wanted to into the QT, I have some greens on the rock with the Monti & I have decided to try & remove the Monti in as whole a piece as poss & then I will put the rockwork in boiling RO water/scrub it, thus killing everything on it & it can them be started again as LR over time, this is the only way I can see to remove all traces of Zoa's from my tank, but I won't be doing this until the weekend, so if anybody has a better idea in the mean time I'm open to suggestions??
1 or 2 of the Zoa rocks don't look too good today, but they didn't before the dip anyways & if I think they are starting to disintegrate then I think they'll be binned for the sake of the others....
My dead tired atm with long work hours, will hopefully post a couple of pics of both spiders & the QT at the weekend, time allowing.
A reply to my thread on another board suggests that the Spiders lay eggs within the polyps, well if this is the case then I'm pretty much buggered :( From what i can find on the Net about sea spiders it indicated that the male held onto the babies until the were big enough to fend for themselves??? Does anybody have any thoughts links that might help me?
Cheers Shelton.
shultz i have a suggestion regarding last resort with any rocks you think are doomed, that is to remove and seperate EVERY healthy looking polyp from rock and place in a lots small plastic containers, keep the containers floating in QT tank in some way to keep water warm but tops of containers must be above QT water level to stop anything getting in them and just be careful not to splash any water into them (my QT tank is shallow with water line only one 1" below top so i used cloths line pegs to hold containers to sides of my QT tank), place a few polyps into each container and slowly remove dead/dieing/spider infested polyps from each container dailey until the dieing stops. use as many little containers as you can to seperate out the polyps as this will help any further spread through out.
container idea = plastic cups they use in coffee/tea machines are about 5" tall so if QT water level can be raised so they sit a couple inches in water would be ok.
Thanks m8, will bear that in mind :)
Cheers Shelton.
OK here's an update for those still interested......
Lastnight I finally finished removing the last traces of Zoa's (I hope!) from the main tank, have put various bits of LR in boiling water to make sure I've killed off the Zoa's left & any Zoa spiders/eggs that might have been in them. Trust me the smell of cooking LR is not nice :( Some good news in that I only managed to break my monti into 3 bits as I removed it from the LR, so that the big bit for me & the 2 smaller bits for trade in at my LFS in a couple of weeks :)
So far most pieces in the QT have atleast some polyps open, but I dumped one tonight that had gone totally black. Did another water change as I'm losing polyps off all rocks & there were a few floating around the QT. Its surprising how quickly Zoa's lose their bright colouring under just a PC lamp, fingers crossed that any that surivive will colour up again once put back in the main tank. I think I have no choice but to add a canister filter of some sort as I can't do daily water changes to keep pulling the crap out :(
I have decided to leave the tank bear of Zoa's for 4 weeks, this gives me a restock date of boxing day! I am going to redip the all my Zoa's next weekend if they look half healthy to catch anything that might have survived/hatched since the first dip, I'm hoping that I shouldn't have to dip anymore than that as I don't fancy their chances with what I've lost so far :(
As a side note I've decided once I re-arrange all the rockwork in the main tank that I'm frag my overbearing leather whilst I have move for the frags to settle over a couple of weeks. Will more than likely update again in a few days time, unless something drastic happens......
Cheers Shelton.
Hey shelton,
Just to let you know I always follow your updates, I think alot of people are interested but like me they probably cant offer you much advise.
Ive honestly never heard of a zoa spider outbrake like this before, I suppose with the amount of zoas you have it would be a perfect breeding ground for them
I think your doing the right thing, In the quarantine tank I would make sure you have alot of flow in there to help the zoas stay clear of any secondary infection.
If colonys look like they wont make it then I would try and take a couple of healthy polyps to grow on at a further date.
If I can help in any way then let me know
bleedmarshall
30-11-06, 01:18
OK here's an update for those still interested......
Ohh please dont stop posting updates because you feel no one is interested. Ive been following the thread but cant offer any advice. All i have to offer is support :)
Keep pluggin Shelton, u'll get there in the end! :);)
Scott
craighuckins
30-11-06, 18:12
some other poor sod has got the problem - I wondered why my radioactive dragon eyes looked washed out - beginning to think I'd got ripped off - Turns out zoa spiders were the problem - killed with an RO dip, and not seen any more.....
some other poor sod has got the problem - I wondered why my radioactive dragon eyes looked washed out - beginning to think I'd got ripped off - Turns out zoa spiders were the problem - killed with an RO dip, and not seen any more.....
How long ago was that m8? See the update below:
Today is judgement day for me, I'm giving myself 24hrs to step back & decide whether to just say enough is enough. Sounds a bit over the top, but its just how I feel now.....
Basically lastnight after my last update I had another look in the QT after lights out, yeap you guessed it the Zoa spiders were out in force again! picked off another 5 :( I have to hand it to them these things really are bulletproof, I've given all my Zoa's 2 dips so far & one of those was nigh on nuclear strenght & yet still more of these buggers can be found alive :( I presume these are coming out of polyps, so really dipping is a waste of time, its a factor of finding them & picking them off to get rid of them?
For me its heartbreaking to see the time & effort I put into this tank just melting away in front of my eyes, this is not even to mention the cost....
I would say out of all the rocks in the QT I have just 4 now that don't look too bad, a dozen or so that look iffy & the rest that don't look good at all, really wondering whether to dump them all & be done with it.
All I can add is I hope none of you big Zoa keepers out there manage to get these in your tank because these are the real deal Zoa killers, nudi's are a walk in the park compared to these.....
My only other thought is to alter my light cycle so that the tank is in darkness a lot earlier so I might dip them & hopefully catch the spiders outside the polyps.... thinking time beckcons.
Cheers Shelton.
@@@@ mate, don't give up.
it must be heart breaking to see your pride and joy suffer like this, the tank was an inspiration to many, so try to fight it as opposed to chucking in the towel.
Good luck.
How about getting the dip ready and then waking up and dipping the zoas in the middle of the night when the spiders are out, after the dip put all the zoas in a seperate container, i,e an old salt bucket and empty completly all contents of the quarantine.
If you do this a few times im sure you get rid of some of them.
My only other suggestion is to take a few healthy polyps from as many colonys as you can and grow them on as frags and ditch the colonie if they go downhill
bleedmarshall
30-11-06, 18:59
:( awch.
Have you taken a decint ammount of each colonies polyps for that just incase moment?
Well I can't say its been a fun 2 hours, here I am at nearly midnight after dipping all that were still alive.....
As a re-cap I am testing a theory its better to dip for Zoa Spiders after lights out, well as the picture below shows I still have a problem :(
I think including the ones that didn't make it into the pic there was 44 tonight :( So it continues, will a beat them or will I run out of polyps first?? Dumped 6 rocks tonight that had bit the dust.......
Apologies for the crappy pic I couldn't be bothered to set up the macro at this time of night...
http://www.pbase.com/image/71050584.jpg
Cheers Shelton.
bloody hell, never seen anything like that!
holy **** shelton
good luck mate, and dont give up really. surely you will get through this some how
bleedmarshall
02-12-06, 01:02
ohh my :( thats some ammount.
I noticed wht alot of members on RP are doing. Really great thing :)
Scott
If you look back over this thread you'll see this brings the number found upto around the 100 mark now :(
Looking at them this morning I must admit they look a bit better for the dip, so hopefully I'm beginning to tip the balance?
Cheers Shelton.
Reefer Madness
03-12-06, 17:39
Been watching this from the start, i hope you can turn this around mate.
As someone who wants to keep a mainly zoanthid tank, this thread is a scar'y read.
Good luck mate,
Pete.
aberdeen aquarist
04-12-06, 19:38
Keep it up Shelton, don't let the bas***ds get you down.
I can only hope that I never experience anything like this, and if you need frags when its over I'd consider it an honour to help restock a tank like yours.
Alan
Right since dipping all that are left in the QT friday I've not found anymore spiders after lights out.... The big test for me will be this coming friday when I dip them all again & see how many spiders I get this week as I know I've always gotten a lot more via dipping than searching.
I suspect I have had some eggs hatch as I notice I'm still losing polyps, though nowhere near on the scale I was... The most important question I would like answered now is how long the eggs take to hatch from being laid within the polyp?
Also it would be good to know how old these spiders have to be before they reach breeding age?
Will give another update on friday, poss saturday once I have dipped again.
Cheers Shelton.
Bunglebubs
06-12-06, 13:30
My sympathies are with you and know how soul destroying things like this are :(
Hopefully you will win the battle and you don't give up. Ive just discovered a small amount of asterinas in my tank now after just getting over some kind of a disease from an infected torch coral that wiped out most of my other lps corals :( although haven't noticed any damage to any corals yet from the stars
Right its time for the friday night update for all you Zoa-holics out there :)
Just dipped what I have left, dumped 2 more rocks as the polyps left had gone so not worth keeping just to totally rot in the QT. Of course what you are reading for is to find out if/how many spiders I found.....
Well ok there is good & bad news as far as I'm concerned, I got 20 spiders this week so thats a good improvement on last weeks 44. The bad news is my largest rock of pinks has lost a fair chunk from it in dead poylps, I got 4 spiders off this rock alone! Continuing the bad news as such about 10 spiders were of a size I would call fully grown, I can't beleive these grow that quickly in a week, so it must mean they are inside either polyps or very lucky in a hole within the LR to survive the 3 dips so far?
I really hope next weeks dip will result in single figure finds, but again time will tell..... Most of the rocks left are between 2-10 polyps & some don't look overly healthy & I dunno how many more dips they will tolerate?
Cheers Shelton.
shultz if only 2-10 polyps left on each why not get a scalpal out and trim under polyp matting and glue these small bunches of polyps on a clean bit of rock rubble, by doin this any spiders within holes/crevices wont get to them, infact put polyp buches into another container and float in QT tank.
i suggest this as i purchased a small 30 polyp zoa colony recently and when got home there was a dead spider in the bag of water, reading this very informative thread of yours i too action straight away and did as i mention above, i found one LIVE spider which was either in a hole/crevises of rock or under/around polyp matting, with colony rock in the bin i have glued the polyps in batches on some more rock rubble and placed in QT for regular inspection. wat i have noticed are wat looks like maybe eggs implanted in a few polyp stems surface tissue just under the polyp heads which can easily be removed/scraped off, this zoa is infact a paly so immune to pox and ive seen enough pox to know its not pox, maybe early days for this paly but so far no polyp losses.
Tbh I have neither the time nor the getupandgo to attempt it m8! Tbh I may never return any of these to my main tank if I can't be 100% sure they've been cured.... Its more observation now to try & help others in the future?
The one bit of advice I'm giving atm is I personally wouldn't add any Zoa's to my tank that haven't been pest free for atleast 3 weeks....
Cheers Shelton.
Don't give up shelton, I really feel for you but don't let the little buggers get to you,
I have been following this and hope that you do manage to beat them, looking at the zoa's you have they are really nice.
Not sure if you have read this about the spiders.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-01/rs/index.php
Have you tried flatworm exit on them? You could dip them in exit and see what happens. I mean it has been known to wipe out a lot more than flat worms. Just an idea.
Hi thanks for the link, the bottom paragraph doesn't bode well! :(
My dip is as follows for those that might need it:
4-5ltrs Ro water heated to tank temp
6 drops of Lugols
2 drops of salifert flatworm exit
small pinch of Osmaprep (to bring up pH)
Cheers Shelton.
Hi thanks for the link, the bottom paragraph doesn't bode well! :(
My dip is as follows for those that might need it:
4-5ltrs Ro water heated to tank temp
6 drops of Lugols
2 drops of salifert flatworm exit
small pinch of Osmaprep (to bring up pH)
Cheers Shelton.
I did think the same about the last para, but I thought the more info you had the better.
Already using exit, so that is me out of ideas for now, glad to see you think you are making progess. Don't give up and write your own paper on it once you have them beat. All the best.
would there be any benfit from doing the dip in cold water? im sure the zoa`s could take it maybe it would stun the little *******s causing them to fall off.
very scary i`d of probably had a break down by now.
Oh man, really sorry to see this. I can only imagine how you are feeling.
I wonder, what eats these guys? Dragonets (Scooters, Mandarins) perhaps?
Maybe of little use now but could perhaps assist limiting their numbers in the main tank while you work through this?
All the very best of luck.
Campbell
would there be any benfit from doing the dip in cold water? im sure the zoa`s could take it maybe it would stun the little *******s causing them to fall off.
very scary i`d of probably had a break down by now.
Tbh as above the dip does kill them, but if they live within the polyp it wouldn't matter what they were dipped in as they would be protected? hence why I think I still keep finding them after a dip.....
Oh man, really sorry to see this. I can only imagine how you are feeling.
I wonder, what eats these guys? Dragonets (Scooters, Mandarins) perhaps?
Maybe of little use now but could perhaps assist limiting their numbers in the main tank while you work through this?
All the very best of luck.
Campbell
Possibly a wrasse, but then knowing how nasty some of them can be I wonder if you might cure one problem & create another?
All fun this reef keeping! :o
Cheers Shelton.
shultz it would be good if you could remove polyps from a rock and place both the rock and the polyps in seperate containers, then if any spiders do appear it will be easy to determine if from within polyps or within rock.
after i found a LIVE spider on a small zoa rock i seperated but threw rock away before thinking to test this idea, no more spiders in container where polyps are tho and no more polyp losses.
shultz it would be good if you could remove polyps from a rock and place both the rock and the polyps in seperate containers, then if any spiders do appear it will be easy to determine if from within polyps or within rock.
after i found a LIVE spider on a small zoa rock i seperated but threw rock away before thinking to test this idea, no more spiders in container where polyps are tho and no more polyp losses.
Tbh m8 if I was at home all day & had the time/space to spare I'd love to set up about 6 different 1gal tanks & try different ways to kill these pests, maybe when I win the lottery though? :o
Cheers Shelton.
Well firstly appologies for anybody mad enough waiting around lastnight for an update... Back was giving me real jip by the time I'd finished dipping & I had to get up early for work so sorry!
Sooooooooo how'd it go you ask??? Well I have to give a little background info first.. A member of the ReefPark forum was giving up his reef tank, he had Zoa's but had been losing them for a while without knowing why. Kudos to Trev in that I offered to take them if nobody wanted them to see what I could save, not only did he give them to me he delivered them from 4 hours away for just some petrol money!!!!
I dipped them on the sunday afternoon & got 2 spiders, so that proved he had the same problem as me :( After adding them to my QT tank I then thought it might bugger up my spider count lastnight as I now had a lot more Zoas! So this sorta brings you upto date & the dip lastnight.....
Firstly losses, another 2 didn't look good, one from trev & one of my originals so they went to the great Zoa club in the sky. All the rest dipped with a noted few loose polyps indicating to me spiders still active. OK! OK! I'll get to the point... Very pleased to say I found just 5 spiders this week & 4 of those came off the new Trev ones so it finally feels like I'm getting somewhere & worth the effort. The hope is of course to find nothing next week, but I ain't holding my breath yet.
So I hope you enjoyed this update as I've said earlier I think its taken me this long to get things under control because I had so many & the steep learning curve to begin with.
Cheers Shelton.
Tbh m8 if I was at home all day & had the time/space to spare I'd love to set up about 6 different 1gal tanks & try different ways to kill these pests, maybe when I win the lottery though? :o
Cheers Shelton.
i was thinking here is a way to do a test regarding where spiders hang out as i gather with all your activaties you still are none the wiser as no trial testing on this has been performed.
im not suggesting lots tanks etc
just 2x floating containers in your QT with tops above water level, one holding removed polyps and one holding their rock, check containers regular for the blighters.
this simple test with one infested zoa rock could show a real way forward to beating them without continued losses if results were favourable,
shultz i really wish you would do this
maybe with one of your new infested zoa rocks as your spider count may be dimished with yours
Do these spiders just affect zoas or do they move onto other things if the zoas run out!? :eek: After reading this thread, I think I will stay away from zoas! Thank you for the information though, very informative.
geez maneez just read the whole thread, and i have to agree with what berns is saying the job shud take u no longer than half an hour all it really require is u too be fragging.
You will get from this
1. u will find out where the zoa spiders are living frag onto a small shell or piece of alfo grog that u know is clean and put say one or two zoa's onto it. you will then find out if the spiders live in the zoa's or on the rock. If you know this for the future then u know you can safly frag all the zoas saving the colony.
2. you will find out if the spiders lay eggs in the zoas or live in them which means your informing others in the future as it may be an idea to just bin the whole lot?
i also advise using white containers as u will find it much easier to spot the little blighters.
Hope things may have got better
and HTH
Tom
ok i was hoping information similar to this to surface on this thread as removing spiders can easily be done without suffering big losses or infact any more polyp losses once operation done, i hope shultz doesnt feel put out in any way by my hijacking this thread with my own experience and seemingly cure to the dreaded spiders.
well so far ive got rid of spiders on 2x colonies without any further polyp losses or re-infestedation after doin a fragging operation on them, i found spiders live in the rock crevises and in the base of the polyp matting which helps them avoid death by dips.
zoa's/palys grow by spreading their base matting over the rock which grips the rock in a vice like way so theres never really any gaps/holes underneath matting, ive found holes chewed out just big enough for spiders to gain entry at the base of polyp mat where they eat the flesh of the polyps on the inside starting at the base (this will result in polyps coming off/floating away from the colony), the spiders entry holes can be seen quite easily on close observation as they make them by eating their way in so the hole is visible (these holes i guess could be anywhere on polyps) then by lifting the matting you can find and remove spiders or even better do an operation by removing the whole zoa/polyp matting from the rock in the first place (as the rock is probably harbouring more so chuck it out) and this makes it easy to find and remove all spiders before glueing small groups of polyps on a clean bit of rock or rubble or in my case cockle shells.
in my case the following weeks will determine if any eggs are present in the polyps of my 2 fragged colonies but 4 and 6 weeks on both zoa fraggings are still spider free and healthy which bodes well with shultz info that the spiders carry the eggs/young etc.
the danger of re-infestation of any zoas/palys if you found spiders on colonies in your main tank is a big possability as spiders live in rocks crevices/holes etc during the day so your reef may not now be a spider free zone, in this case a quarrenteen tank to hold your zoa fraggings would be safer for a period of time till you can be certain all frags are spider free and any spiders in your reef will have starved, i guess you'll also find out if any spiders you may have take a liking to other coral species in your reef, i wish i kept some live spiders in a container with maybe a few other bits of soft corals to test this.
keep up the good work as i plan some nice zoo`s im my tank this worries me slightly and if i bought another tank (quarantine) the misses would go mad. might sneak a nano lol
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