Odd Soft Coral Behaviour

I purchased some small soft button coral from my LFS and was informed it would be good with low light levels about 3 weeks ago. Unfortunately I do not know the exact name (I think zoas?), but was quite pleased as looked quite interesting and it also has a red sponge going on the bottom of the rock.

For the first week they were fine, opening up with the lights on (T5 lights set 10 hours) and seemed to do well. Then suddenly a week later they closed and didn't re-open.

I checked the water quality, everything was fine. Completed a 25% water change a few days later just to be on the safe side and still no joy.

I was just starting to loose all hope and now, 2 weeks later I have noticed 2 of the buttons have opened up again today, although they have lost quite a bit of their green colour.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be up or what I could be doing wrong?

I think you should do a dip for pests. There are lots of pests that prey on corals, zoanthids specifically. If they are being munched on by a pest, they will stay closed up like that and eventually die.

You can buy a coral dip at your LFS and follow the directions on the bottle, and see what falls off in your container (if there are pests).

What are your water parameters testing at? And how many T5 bulbs do you have?

Zoas are normally very hardy and easy to keep. Something is bugging those guys. Let's try to figure out what it is.

Thank you Sarah. Since my last post I have been busy transferring all my fish into a quarantine tank. I discovered fish itch and unfortunately have lost most of my fish. I think it entered my tank via a filefish that I bought a few weeks back at the same time as I started to introduce coral. The fish had been fine for months before...

The corals seem to be doing fine, half of the zoas are now open and hopefully may flourish over the next few months before I start to considering adding fish again into the system.

Sorry to hear about your fish. Are you treating the fish with hyposalinity or copper for the ich? If you treat them, you should wait about 8 weeks before introducing them back into the tank. The corals will do fine in the meantime, provided your lighting and water quality stays good.

Due to how quickly they all have taken a turn for the worst, I am using copper. I do not think I would of had the time to slowly reduce the salinity down. Only have 3 fish still alive now, happened so quickly. Quite depressing...

How long do you recommend I should wait for the itch to die off in my main tank? I have heard mixed times between 4-12 weeks. Do you know if snails, crabs or shrimp can be carriers of itch?

I plan to keep my water in perfect condition and maybe add a bit more coral.

How many fish did you start with? If some died already, that was very overstocked for a 32 gallon tank. For saltwater, you are limited to about 1 fish per 10 gallons. Any more than that, and your fish become stressed, and stress brings out ich.

You need to leave the tank fishless for 8 weeks. Your snails, crabs and shrimp will not carry the ich, so they are fine to leave in the tank. It requires a fish host, so as long as the fish are out of the tank, the ich will die off.