Caribbean Zoas!??!?!?

After looking at some healthier colonies in some of your and other's tanks, I moved mine that are on the clamshell. MUCH better extension under slightly brighter light but much less flow. Different from many zoas I've kept that really like to be blasted with current.

I'd still love to hear from speckledgrouper or morphologic... - even for vague conditions of where they see such ones growing (z sociatus) - flow, turbidity and light exposure
 
Y'all are very lucky to be able to collect or even just enjoy seeing zoas like this. Great colors. Some of the best I've seen.
 
Let's not derail this thread. Of course I feel bad when I fail with a new species. But I learn from mistakes and purchase all my corals with the intent of propagating them so others can share.
 
in my personal opinion i dont feel guilty cuz i just take little frags and i propagate them later and they dont die... insted in the wild they can die cuz of the global warmning, contamination and human deforestation. Cuz where i took them the goverment want to make a hotel!! aarrggg stuped goverment!!! so in my opinion im helping the ecosistem jiji
 
some of those pics are not frags, rather small colonies. and only need to be taken once. don't get me wrong. I've never been tempted to take corals from the ocean because I'm land locked. but a general respect level should be given to the ocean. especially coming from someone who has an appreciation for marine life. I'm not mad but it seems strange to me that aqua culture corals are not the only way to go. according to national geographic in january 2010. from 2000 to 2007, indonesia exported 9,449,128 stony corals, and the U.S. imported 4,734,836 of those. you cant tell me many of those corals were not the same species. DBTC Tony
 
@ tampa snooker- i find them in shallow water in inlets normally in about 2-3 feet of water in large colonies. no, i dont feel bad about taking a small frag from a colony that 1,000 polyps strong and probably wouldve been bitten off by one of the queen angels anyway. the water can be slightly cloudy on outgoing tides.
there is a constant, strong current that is necessary for the zoanthids to live there.
i see some pretty amazing zoas there. i have some that look almost identical to the famous "purple hornets"
 
reefWW96, I have waited 2 years to read that paragraph. Thanks a million. It's often hard to get collection info from collectors and distributors who (understandably) don't want to divulge such info.
 
Sazama, I appreciate your perspective but this is a thread about caribbean zoas. There are dozens of debates on the topics surrounding the ethics of keeping and collecting for aquariums in the responsible reefkeeping forum. Again, let's keep this topic on track. No disrespect. Thank you.
 
those are some beautiful corals... and who doesn't like free coral. question, any average joe can legally tave 5 polyps a day? can one obtain a collection licence.
 
Any joe with a FL saltwater fishing license and a 2" flexible plastic scraping blade. The rules are very strict about both what you may take and how you take it. Bring home some rock with your polyp and you may lose your boat, trailer and car - whatever 'tools' you used to collect with.
This link should get you close.
http://www.myfwc.com/RULESANDREGS/SaltwaterRules_index.htm
Also, Colin from Coral Morphologic just published a great article in Coral magazine on Caribbean zoas with some info on habitat and better yet - survivability of the species he mentioned earlier in this thread.
 
reefWW96 said:
@ tampa snooker- i find them in shallow water in inlets normally in about 2-3 feet of water in large colonies.
there is a constant, strong current that is necessary for the zoanthids to live there.
i see some pretty amazing zoas there. i have some that look almost identical to the famous "purple hornets"
Click to expand...

The shallow water ones are usually sold as seamat and are usually green or gold. The inlet conditions you describe would be really tough to replicate which is probably why I've never ever seen live seamat zoas outside of a LFS (for more than a week). Lord knows I've tried a couple times. The turquoise, blue and teal greens that were posted earlier are a deeper water species and like the same conditions as FL rics. Med light, med flow and likely decent nutrients in the water. I love this family of zoas...

Here's a nice find. Look closely :) I just learned a lot from a couple pics alone. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1202237

These second ones (3rd adn 4th pics) are seamat. Very colorful, too and judging from the seagrass around them, they are used to exceptionally high light, tidal flow - in and out, variable salinity from rain and higher nearshore dissolved nutrients. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=367306
 
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