what's the cause (zoa)?

[hiimsean]

at the swap i got a single darth maul polyp. it was open at the swap, open when i got home and has been doing great since, until yesterday. yesterday it was closed all day, a bit of the skirt was poking out, and continued to look bad throughout the day. today it just looks like a little lump of flesh and i don't have any confidence that it will return. all other z&p's are great, always open even under direct light (including a few blue tubbs i got sunday too). i even stuck it to the side of the tank where the LEDs wouldn't be as intense. any ideas of the cause to it [probably] dying 5days later? i have seen some large pods scurring around but like i said, no other z&p frags have had this problem.

here it was on tuesday, i'll try to get a pic with my phone today

alt="" />

 

[maelstrom79]

Honestly, I've had similar problems but zoas are amazingly resilient. I have a red hornet that wouldn't open up fully for at least a month and I found that with regular water changes he came back. make sure nothing is around it irritating it..... Like one of those small filter worms.

 

[rskillz]

Known issue with Darth Mauls. This morph seems to melt much more often than most others. I had a colony of them in my home tank for a year or so, fragged it 20 times at least, no issues, and then one day....just closed up and never opened again. Same spot, same flow, light, etc.

Hope that isn't the case with yours. Not a lot you can do at this point other than wait it out.

 

[hiimsean]

thanks, i really liked this zoa so i hope it will open back up but im not holding my breath

 

[peaches7412]

I had a single polyp of LOTR close up for a week, sort of the same way yours has. It also got all black and swollen. But then one day it just opened up and has been fine ever since.

 

[db366]

I had a darth Maul melt on me as well. I asked around and from what I have heard they are deep water zoa's and it's too much light.. not too sure how true this is, but it does kind of make since, since the coral is melting.

 

[ichthyoid]

I have learned that alk too high or too low, too much flow, or a big change in light can upset them.