Keeping Zoas???

[daniella3d]

Welcome to the club, we've got T-shirts!

This is very typical of some zoanthids, especially the smaller ones like the zoanthus sociatus. They seem to have a buffer where they can thrive and then when this is gone they waste away.

Some never do this, especially the larger paly that accept food. I never ever had a problem with the rainbow, pink and gold (immortal) and armaggedon for exemples. They eat, they do great. I never had one of those melted away, even when I had copper poisoning.

Vitamine C does help the smaller sociatus, but it is still difficult to keep them long term. The one millon $ question is why they do this? nobody knows. They could be lacking nutrient, plankton, not sure. Once they decide to waste away, there is rarely any return.

Dipping them in 3% peroxyde at 1/3 peroxyde and 2/3 tank water for 2 minutes often help.

Good luck, they are sensitive to any shift in the water parameters, and very sensitive to any heavy metal. I once dosed a bit of iron and magnaneese as recommanded on the bottle, and immediatly lost 3 colonies.