Armegeddons

[THE BEAUT]

Just wanted to know who has been able to keep them. Please show some pics. Mine grew nicely from my original 2 polyps to 20 and then just slowly faded away.

 

[I-K@ndY]

JOin the CLub

 

[I-K@ndY]

JOin the CLub ..

 

[Sea MunnKey]

Not trying to be rude ... but judging from what all lot of folks have had to pay for them Armageddon's only to find that they wilt away later on .. .that's really Painful ...

Paul

 

[Patwa]

yep....I had two polyps...they slowly...i mean SLOWLY, just faded away into oblivion

Zach

 

[Preston]

I wouldn't know since I don't have a single polyp. If anyone has one or a couple polyps for sale let me know.

 

[surfn]

also had 2-3 polyps, only to have it slowly die off over the course of 3-4 months.

 

[rocko918]

never had but always wanted.

 

[revhtree]

I had a frag of 4 and a frag of 2 where I fragged for a friend. I lost the 4, and then my PB decided to start eating on the 2 polyp frag and ate one polyp. Got rid of him and I have one lonely polyp! I have had frags off this colony for over 2 1/2 years now so I am confident that they will return. When they start to bloom I will pass some on, but your looking at least a year away..

 

[Christel Mei]

Zoas die for a reason, not becuase they are a particular type. When they start to fade, why arent you guys doing furan 2 dips?

 

[revhtree]

I had a frag of 4 and a frag of 2 where I fragged for a friend. I lost the 4, and then my PB decided to start eating on the 2 polyp frag and ate one polyp. Got rid of him and I have one lonely polyp! I have had frags off this colony for over 2 1/2 years now so I am confident that they will return. When they start to bloom I will pass some on, but your looking at least a year away..

They do die, but some are way more finicky than others. This just happens to be one of them.

 

[Patwa]

Zoas die for a reason, not becuase they are a particular type. When they start to fade, why arent you guys doing furan 2 dips?

not sure you get the picture here......if you look at all the reefers who've tried to keep armageddons, you soon find that a good lot of them are prolly some of the most knowledgable zoa keepers on this continent, prolly the world.

Armageddons are just very finicky, it seems.....enough people have tried them and enough people have failed. Try them yourself, that's if you can find them!

Furan2 would prolly be my very last option for treating zoas....there are a bunch of other tried and true (ie. safer) method to treat zoanthids, imo....tpmcc, peroxide, fw dips

Zach

 

[Christel Mei]

I understand the picture, but no matter how experienced they are, zoas dont just wither away. There has to be a cause......disease, predation or water quality. or lighting. Simple as that.

Given that most people keeping these zoas are not noobs, lighting and water should be a GIVEN. Zoas dont like NO3 IME, but I assume that is not the case here. Although you would be surprised how bad some "expereinced" reefers let their tanks get. That leaves disease and predation.

Amphipods can and do eat zoanthids, but the damage is quick and polyps dissapear over night. They dont really wither away from predation.

That leaves disease. We really dont know much about zoas disease, some people call them bacterial infection, some call them fungal, some call it zoa pox. Sure there are different diseases, and I'm sure some are bacterial and some are fungal.

I have beat zoa pox, and beat several re occurances in my tank. Some stains tend to be more sensitive to it, particularly eagle eyes and dragon eyes. Although I have seen many different varieties sick with some sort of infection.

I handle thousands of zoas of many different types daily. The owner of the LFS I work at completely stopped selling zoanthids because of how many customers were having a hard time keeping them. He was having a hard time keeping them in his systems at the shop, which have thriving SPS colonies in them.

I showed them how well furan 2 works to solve many zoa issues. We now have tons of healthy colonies in all of our systems, and happy customers.

I would also like to hear why you dont think furan 2 dips are safe? I have dipped more zoas than you can imagine, and I have NEVER seen an adverse reaction from one strain of zoas...from PPE's to nuclear greens to whatever. Furan 2 DOES NOT HARM zoas. As a matter of fact a freshwater dip is FAR more harmful and stressful to zoas than a Furan 2/tank water dip, so is a peroxide dip.

 

[twon8]

sometimes things die because it's there time. we dont' really know enough about zoas to know if they "age/grow old"; and maybe a mature colony was brought in and it was spread around and by the time people got them they were already near the end of their life, i.e. past the age of fecundity

 

[surfn]

my theory on the reason why armagedons seem to die in everyone's tanks, is most likely due to the conditions of where they originally came from in the ocean. maybe they are a tidewater species, or a very very deep water species. most likely something on the very edge of the spectrum....and thats why they don't seem to thrive n a "normal" reef environment.

most of know lighting and nitrates issues...thats nothing new. a few of us have been in this zoa collecting game for many years now.

i've never seen a picture of a colony of armagedons, so i can only assume that no one has any real success with them. there are many other corals in the ocean that people have had problems keeping in home aquaria also, most of which has nothing to do with "water quality".

 

[J. Montgomery]

I'm sticking to my theory of bacterial or vial infection . . . based on nothing whatsoever.

 

[msman825]

good point Al

 

[revhtree]

my theory on the reason why armagedons seem to die in everyone's tanks, is most likely due to the conditions of where they originally came from in the ocean. maybe they are a tidewater species, or a very very deep water species. most likely something on the very edge of the spectrum....and thats why they don't seem to thrive n a "normal" reef environment.

most of know lighting and nitrates issues...thats nothing new. a few of us have been in this zoa collecting game for many years now.

i've never seen a picture of a colony of armagedons, so i can only assume that no one has any real success with them. there are many other corals in the ocean that people have had problems keeping in home aquaria also, most of which has nothing to do with "water quality".

And I will add to the last sentence...

There are many other corals in the ocean that people have had problems keeping in home aquaria also, most of which has nothing to do with "water quality", predators, or sickness.

Same thing goes for the fact that some fish just cannot be kept without dying and it has nothing to do with water quality or predators. There is just something unknown missing and this could def. be the case pertaining to a particular type of zoanthid. IMHO.

 

[Christel Mei]

I'm sticking to my theory of bacterial or vial infection . . . based on nothing whatsoever.

I think your right!

Rev, you are a very experienced zoa keeper, I have enjoyed your pictures for a long time, but I have to disagree with you. The reason why fish and other hard to keep animals die is usually because or mal nutrition. This seems to be a case of disease. I think we can all agree that some types of zoas are more prone to infection than others, a prime example is radioactive dragon eyes. I have seen more zoa pox cases pertaining to this strain than any other type. I have also saved colonies of hundreds of them with one dip in furan 2.

For example dragonettes....one type isnt any easier to keep than the other. This goes for other types of animals as well. Just because we gave this zoa a fancy name and a high price tag doesnt mean its requirements are any different from the hundreds of other types we keep. It just doesnt add up, it simply cannot be so similar and as some claim, "unique" in its care requirements at the same time.

I have personally never had the pleasure of keeping armegeddons, but I would happily if given the chance. I am also fairly certain I could do it successfully.

Let me ask you all this, out of every one here who has lost these zoas, have even one of you attempted a furan 2 dip before the colony's demise?

Furan 2 should be a go to for zoa problems just like iodine is a go to for SPS problems. The fact is it simply doesnt hurt healthy polyps, and has been proven time and time again to solve many zoanthid problems, both known like the pox, and other that dont necessarily show symptoms, although I feel that the same disease that prduce the white lesions can manifest itself without any outward signs other than closed polyps.

 

[J. Montgomery]

Another little bit of food for thought . . .

Since the concept of all zoas are the same has been brought up, I'll throw in some info about human susceptibility to infectious diseases. Its been shown that genetic variations can make people susceptible to certain diseases (leprosy and chronic hepatis B virus persistence for example). Most of the human population is not at risk for these diseases, but certain individuals with particular genetic variations are at risk. You could be married to a leper and never develop leprosy yourself, but your children would be at risk since they can inherit the gene that makes your spouse susceptible.

So while people are mostly the same, and zoas are mostly the same, they're not all exactly the same. In the case of Armagedons, hobbyists have been spreading around a clonal lineage with the same genetic makeup. It may have a genetic mutation that makes it susceptible to a disease that wouldn't otherwise infect other zoas.



I hope that makes sense and isn't too confusing. Just something else to think about. I like Anthony's idea as well, it's something that we come across is culturing cells in the lab. You can only culture them for so long before they crap out.