Over the last few months my frag of Purple People Eaters has been a source of frustration and worry. My tank parameters have been nearly perfect (and still are), all of my other zoas, palys amd protopalys are doing great and spreading, but the PPEs persist in acting strange. I started off with 3 polyps in October. By mid November I had two due to the smallest ceasing to open and starting to shrink. Now I have three new polyps buds, but the two large polyps have contorted themselves into bell shapes and their mouths are gaping. Their skirts have shrunken to the point where you can hardly tell they have "fingers." I've been spot feeding them a few times a week, but the last several days has proven less than successful. I've had the frag in the bottom third of my tank, but tonight I moved them up to the top quarter. Any thoughts, suggestions? I really don't want to lose this frag. TIA!

Tank stats are as follows:

90 gal
Lighting IceCap 660 with 4 bulbs/reflectors (soon to be 6 bulbs).
SG 1.025
Ammonioa: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
PH: 8.2
Calcium: ~400
dkH: ~10
Phosphate <.25

These guys can be difficult to keep. My LFS friend has not successfully kept them at all. Good move in putting them higher, how much flow are they in? I keep mine about 3/4 up from the sand bed and in a pretty good stream. So far so good, even have a new polyp coming up.

They weren't in much flow, but neither were the SPE that were less than 3" away from them, but the SPEs are thriving.

here is a before and after pic (same frag orientation in both pics)

Ok, I did a little more research on PPE's are the mouths expelling brown waste? When they do this it generally means they are stressed. Have you noticed any spahgetti worms or pods always on the frag?

I haven't noticed any worms or vermetids coming into contact with them lately. I do recall seeing some brown waste a few days back, but I can't remember if it was the PPEs or the SPEs.

Could be irritation from another coral. By moving them they should bounce back, hopefully.

Could be. I think I'm going to place them away from everything else for a while and see how they do there.

I'm seeing what I believe to be improvement today. Neither are bell shaped, though they still look shrunken. Neither are gaping either. Hopefully they will perk up now that they are more isolated.

The PPEs continue to decline, but I've got 3 new polyps opening, so it's not a loss. I've been having trouble with my alkalinity and PH recently, so I purchased some B-Ionic last night. Hopefully that will solve my imbalance problems.

The PPEs appear to be on the up and up. I moved them to a lower, indirectly lighted and low flow area a day or two ago and they are rebounding wonderfully. The three new polyps opened up almost immediately. The two larger polyps took a little longer, but they are all looking healthier today. Now if I can just keep them that way....