mallorieGgator
New member
Hey everyone. I lost my first zoa colony ever yesterday. 
I'm too hard on myself but I feel I need to ask opinions. I got a frag of these zoas at the SE-CFM last month and they were ok looking. They were a new frag and I paid only a little for them so I wanted to give them a try. There were roughly 10 small polyps on these guys. I acclimated them, dipped them and then placed them mid-level in my 55 gallon. They were in medium-high water flow and medium light. Half of the colony melted within a week of having them. There were two seperate colonies on this frag and one stayed healthy. Last week I noticed it started closing but then it would open. It added 4 polyps in a week and I came back from vacation last night and they were all closed and browning. I took them out of the tank and threw them away because I don't want any fungus or bacteria getting to my other zoas. They were slightly melted as well. All other colonies are doing wonderful. I have never seen these zoas in the trade so is it possible I just got an already sick colony or that these are just not meant for captivity? Here is a picture to help if anyone has a species ID. You can see how the back half of the colony was melted already. There was a small sponge growing in them that was irritating them so I removed the sponge from around the polyps.
I'm too hard on myself but I feel I need to ask opinions. I got a frag of these zoas at the SE-CFM last month and they were ok looking. They were a new frag and I paid only a little for them so I wanted to give them a try. There were roughly 10 small polyps on these guys. I acclimated them, dipped them and then placed them mid-level in my 55 gallon. They were in medium-high water flow and medium light. Half of the colony melted within a week of having them. There were two seperate colonies on this frag and one stayed healthy. Last week I noticed it started closing but then it would open. It added 4 polyps in a week and I came back from vacation last night and they were all closed and browning. I took them out of the tank and threw them away because I don't want any fungus or bacteria getting to my other zoas. They were slightly melted as well. All other colonies are doing wonderful. I have never seen these zoas in the trade so is it possible I just got an already sick colony or that these are just not meant for captivity? Here is a picture to help if anyone has a species ID. You can see how the back half of the colony was melted already. There was a small sponge growing in them that was irritating them so I removed the sponge from around the polyps.
