Melting Zoas/Paly's

[daniella3d]

YOu see, I have a little problem with your statement here. Some people have zoanthids growing well for years and then out of nowhere, for no apparent reason they just melt.

If your assumption was right, they would melt right at the begining and not months or years later.

sure....we don't know where they were collected and all..but salt water from the ocean is pretty much similar, it's mostly the temperature that change with depth. As long as we keep an acceptable temperature and acceptable close enough parameters to the ocean water, they should be able to survive.

In any case, they should not do ok for so long and then pouffff....just melt.

Yes that is a big and a very big mystery.

One thing that I have noticed is that some are very sensitive to sudden changes in water parameters and some are rock solid no matter what happen in the aquarium. Some are definitly more resistant than others and the larger palythoas are more resistant than the smaller more finicky zoanthus sociatus.

Take the exemple of my magicians...they can go thriving and multiplying like crazy (obviously having the right conditions!) and for no apparent reason, without an hour, they shrivel and look bad for an undetermined reason and length of time. They might come back and start to grow like weeds again...it's a mystery yes.

Originally Posted by fishytime

whats the big mystery?......simple fact is zoanthids and palys are collected from a wide range of "zones".....everywhere from tidal zones that get exposed to the air, to 50-100' deep......this makes it extremely hard to know what light and flow conditions will make zoa X happy.......heres my zoa routine......bring zoa X home from the store........dip and inspect zoa X thoroughly....... GLUE zoa X down where I think I want it (very important step here, most zoas will never settle in and grow if they are getting bumped around)......if zoa X doesnt seem to be happy in the chosen spot, I take it out, dip it again, inspect it again and glue it down in a different spot.....if it was in the light, I put it in the shade......thats about all you can do really......that and resign to the fact that we will never make 100% of our coral happy 100% of the time....