why is it that when ever I buy Zoa from someone they are brightly colored and once it opens up in my thank it's all brown!! Big zoo rock from montisteve, palys from itzme, bright pink cocos online, and a few others all brown! I know that the zoo rock from Steve is the same from the pic but it was an alsome light green and once in my tank it's brown.. Grrr is there an addative for zoos? Something to get there color? Water is normal, light is 8 bulb tek with 4 actinic 2 daytime 2 other daytime
Anyone else experiancing this??
- Thread starter aznnutty
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vivek
New member
my problem with zoas is i cannot kill them. i have a nice piece of live rock with green zoas that look pathetic and orange skirts. this rock is at the top of my tank. i thought when i moved them under the hallides they would melt away but they just sit there staring at me everyday. they dont grow and they dont die. The best they ever looked and were growing was when i had them in my 60g tank that i never checked parms, lighting was pathetic vho's did once a month or when i could remember water changes and had no skimmer. the only filtration was live rock.
the budman
New member
i have found that new zoos in my tank look like crap for a few days and then open up and look good again. allow some time for acclimation. i have lots of movement and run compact fluorescents. dual actinic and dual daylight at 260 watts in a 40 long. i change 10 every other weekend and also feed various planktons almost every day. are all your chem levels right? hope this helps
Oceanic150
New member
It seems to me that they need to be put into similar lighting as they were raised or they do change color ,for me that has also been brown. My last setup was vho,this happened to me several times. My new setup is halide,vho, 1080wats total and have not had this happen at all over 1 1/2 years.
gelatin_man
New member
Add some kool aid and it will have great color......LOL seriously though they might go through a fairly long acclimation period of poor color. Give them some time and make sure they have some iodine.
Aqua Keepers
New member
I've read somewhere that adding vitamine C does wonders for zoos
Briney Dave
New member
You can get a more definative answer than this at reef-2-reef (formally club zoa) but it is not at all uncommon for most varieties of zoanthids to color morph under stress and or changes in lighting. The most common advice there is to change the light level slowly until you get a color you are happy with and they remain healthy under.
Melting occures commonly as well. I don't think the causes of that are well understood. I have read far too many posts that seem to counter most hypothesis regarding this to bother repeating any here. The Caribean varieties seem to be more prone to this than others. (strickly surveying self reports from that web site)
My students will be starting a study in a couple weeks using 15 common morphs of zoanthids measuring growth rates verses temperature differences. I am not sure if that will induce any color changes but will certainly share our findings if you are interested.
Melting occures commonly as well. I don't think the causes of that are well understood. I have read far too many posts that seem to counter most hypothesis regarding this to bother repeating any here. The Caribean varieties seem to be more prone to this than others. (strickly surveying self reports from that web site)
My students will be starting a study in a couple weeks using 15 common morphs of zoanthids measuring growth rates verses temperature differences. I am not sure if that will induce any color changes but will certainly share our findings if you are interested.
gelatin_man
New member
Iodine helps corals to get rid of excess oxygen produced in photosynthesis so if there isn't enough iodine the zooxanthelle won't be able to function properly and they are what gives the color....this is just a little theory of mine I have been working on can't hurt to try adding some iodine....and if you skim then the skimmer is pulling out quite a bit of the iodine.
