Red people eater zoas looking like death - details inside

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A while ago I purchased this frag of red people eater zoas. The frag plug was entirely covered to the point that some of the polyps were growing past the edge of the plug. After 2 weeks I decided to cut most of the polyps off to stick in different locations across the tank, hoping they'd grow into their own mini colonies. I left 3 polyps on the original frag plug. Immediately after the fragging, I noticed that a few of the zoa polyps had developed a dark 'bruise' on them (I was very gentle during the fragging process and did not press down on any of the polyps), but looked otherwise healthy and were fully open again within minutes of being fragged. Over the next few days, however, the zoas started acting strange. They would open fully, but in an umbrella-like shape with their skirts pointing downwards. They also stayed open like that even after lights out, and no amount of physical prodding could get them to close up. At this point they still looked pretty plump and healthy, just a bit weird. After that however, many of the polyps started looking worse - developing shrivelled and wrinkled stems. In many cases it looked like the stems were actually in 'closed mode' but with the polyps still sticking out such that it looked like the polyps were getting choked at the 'neck' by their own stems. The skirts on the polyps also started either deflating or receding. The most curious part of all this is that the 3 polyps I had left on the original frag plug also started looking worse in a similar fashion. I had another frag plug with a different morph of zoas on them which I had similarly fragged on the same day. They also got a bit 'bruised' initially but recovered completely over the next few days and are doing fantastic now. Meanwhile, these zoas look like death. I eventually got sick of the half-dead zoas ruining the overall look of my tank, so I gathered up all the stray polyps and stuck them back onto a frag plug, which I then moved, along with the original frag plug, to the back of the tank where they'll be (mostly) out of sight.

 

I am of course hoping that they will recover in time, but they've only gotten worse over the past 2 weeks. They now seem to be shedding a thin layer of skin around the stem that I blow off with a turkey baster every couple of days. I have included some pictures of the zoas in question, with and without lights on.

 

Has anyone experienced something like this before? I'm not entirely convinced that stress from fragging is the sole reason (or even the reason at all) for this occurrence, because again, I was really gentle during the process and I actually peeled the base of the polyps off the plug instead of cutting through flesh (the only real cuts I made were to separate adjacent polyps). Plus, I have the other zoa morph that went through the same thing for comparison - and they are doing well. I also doubt that it's a water parameter issue, but just for completeness' sake I will include them:

 

Salinity 1.025sg

Temperature 26°C

NO3 10ppm

PO4 ~0.03ppm

Alkalinity 8.2dKH

Ca 430ppm

Mg 1320ppm

 

These levels were recorded when I first started to notice something wrong with my zoas, but I test on a weekly basis and have not seen any significant fluctuations.