How are different "designer" zooanthid colors produced?

[Pandora]

Are differently colored zoo's different species or are they just color variations or strains? How do they get so many color combos, are they seen in Nature like this? Seems like every other day I see a new super bright zoo with a different color pattern; I've had some pretty wild ones myself, one fluorescent bubble gum pink, and one very bright green with sunshine yellow & orange inside.

Since most corals won't ever go sexual in a tank, I'd assume you can't do a breeding program to get a new unique color variation, as you might with a horse or a rose. And is the color just due to the kind of zooxanthelae that symbiote with them?

 

[loyalty]

i've always wondered that myself

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Interesting.

I do know that I've had some change colors in my tank just from the type of lighst they were kept under. I had some that darken up when moved from 10K Xm MH to 14K Phionex MH lights. I've also had some that went from a lavander to a peach under the same circumstances. Could it be just the lights?

I have had a 6 year old bubble coral go sexual in my tank and released eggs/sperm in the tank. Almost wiped out the tank due to oxygen starvation. I lost all of my fish and my corals had a long recovery time but survived.

 

[Pandora]

Glad I'm not the only one with this question. I originally posed it in the general reefing section and bumped it, but no one seemed to know there, so moved it here...

I started thinking about it when I was telling my mom about all the different zoo color variations (I think I know the answer to my first question, not different species). She is into gardening, and I was thinking the way reefers trade zoo frags for new colors is much like how avid horticulturalists trade plumeria and rose cuttings of new colors, sometimes those are pretty wild also (she got all excited and wanted me to set up a new SW tank for her, but I refused after I saw how she never changed the water in the FW planted tank I set up for her years ago...). Except the difference with the horticulturalists is that they produce new strains through sexual reproduction. This is how you get really bizarre looking roses that are jet black with red and white streaks and curly edges, you never see this in Nature.

With reef tanks, I know spawning sometimes happens under good conditions in a hobbyists tank, but it was my understanding that raising polyps from their planktonic forms was close to impossible in the trade, and so that the corals we see in the trade are either collected or gotten from vegetative propagation, i.e. the fragging we all do. This is asexual reproduction; = no genetic recombination.

On the lighting, it's also my understanding that different lights with different wavelengths will excite different types of zooxanthelae in various corals, which causes this color change effect. Also, I know zooxanthelae can sometimes migrate from one coral to another, for example, when a coral bleaches and then comes back another color, or when two colors of frogspawn grow together, but the stronger zooanthelae take over both. I just would think zoos are more complicated than that.... it's not just 2 or 3 colors that they come in, but literally hundreds of different exotic combos that almost look painted on. Every time I think I've seen it all, I look in someone's gallery and see another "Wow, I gotta get me some of that!".

 

[grim]

Prepare a holding tank of saltwater.
Carefully bleach a very large number of zoa colonies.
Put bleached colonies into holding tank.
Get the prettiest crocea or maxima clam you can find.
Liquify the mantle in a blender (yes you read this correctly)
Pour contents into tank.
Wait a few hours for the zoanthids to take up the zoox. liberated from the clam mantle.

grim

(I will not admit or deny having tried the above mentioned process)

 

[Pandora]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6537875#post6537875 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by grim
Prepare a holding tank of saltwater.
Carefully bleach a very large number of zoa colonies.
Put bleached colonies into holding tank.
Get the prettiest crocea or maxima clam you can find.
Liquify the mantle in a blender (yes you read this correctly)
Pour contents into tank.
Wait a few hours for the zoanthids to take up the zoox. liberated from the clam mantle.

grim

(I will not admit or deny having tried the above mentioned process)

:lol:

You never know, some newbie will read this and actually try it...

 

[thehedge]

I posted in the General Reef Discussion thread, but I believe that they are all found in the wild, as I have seen some pretty amazing zooanthid colonies while diving.

 

[grim]

It's not so far fetched, in fact, it's a critical part of captive propagating photosynthetic clams..

grim

 

[Pandora]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6539161#post6539161 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by grim
It's not so far fetched, in fact, it's a critical part of captive propagating photosynthetic clams..

grim

I was sure you were kidding! Link?

 

[Mrs.kbmdale]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6537875#post6537875 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by grim
Prepare a holding tank of saltwater.
Carefully bleach a very large number of zoa colonies.
Put bleached colonies into holding tank.
Get the prettiest crocea or maxima clam you can find.
Liquify the mantle in a blender (yes you read this correctly)
Pour contents into tank.
Wait a few hours for the zoanthids to take up the zoox. liberated from the clam mantle.

grim

(I will not admit or deny having tried the above mentioned process)

I too was sure you were kidding. Without admitting or denying use of this process, what are the results? I personally haven't the cash flow for an "experiment" like this.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6539161#post6539161 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by grim
It's not so far fetched, in fact, it's a critical part of captive propagating photosynthetic clams..

grim

Like Pandora said, LINK???


Brianna:rollface:

 

[grim]

Page 43:

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/ctsa/130.pdf

"Giant clam larvae do not inherit zooxanthelle from the parent, so extracted zooxanthelle are seeding into the larvae..."


"Zooxanthelle are extracted from the mantle of a living donor clam. In most instances the clam is killed, but in some areas where giant clams are rarte, small pieces of mantle may be cut from a living clam."

"The factors that determine giant clam mantle color and the relationship between donor mantle color and larval mantle color are poorly understood at this time."

"Although hatchery technicians routinely extract zooxanthelle from one or more donor clams that have a highly desirable color or patterning in hopes that this will produce clams with a similar color..."

"Zooxanthelle are then extracted from the mantle by macerating the tissue in a kitchen blender..."

-grim

 

[Pandora]

grim--

Thank you, that's really interesting. I had heard about zooxanthelae injeciton in the past with corals, but with clams, that is some sacrifice... and would be an expensive shake at Jamba Juice...

I'd still like to know if anyone knows for sure if the coloration of zoos is wholy dependant on zooxanthelae. Do they produce such vivid greens, yellows, reds, etc based on just this alone? How much does genetics play a role?

 

[gflat65]

There is anecdotal evidence of repopulating zooxanthellae in BTA's just by stressing one BTA with color near (or in the same tank) the bleached BTA.

The zoas you are seeing are morphs. I have a rock that started out as some nice orange centered/neon green skirted zoas. They have transformed and morphed into a kind of tie dye effect. I took some pics this morning and hope to have them up later. I think it is just normal morphing, but it seems to stick...

 

[reefgeek84]

I am willing to bet that most are natural. Think about it all creatures, ressemble eachother but do not look exactly alike. Humans for example, we ressemble eachother but all look different, why should it be any different for zoos? I am sure some people have come up with something to change the colors, but i bet for the most part they are natural.

 

[Pandora]

gflat, by "morph", what do you mean? Like an outlier? And if so, is this a genetic mutation that's slightly different? I guess I'm trying to get at how much of it would be hereditary, or if it's just environmental (lights stimulating zooxanthellae differently, or different types inside the coral).

 

[gflat65]

I've gone through some lighting changes, which has probably had a major influence. I have a rock that started with orange centered/green skirted zoas, some Bam Bam orange, and some that had a deep purple/brown center with orange skirts. The zoas have been at the same level in the tank for over a year. When I switched to 250W DE's w/VHO supplementation, colors started to change. The ones that have filled in around the older orange center/green skirt have a strange tie dyed look. It seems like some of the originals have changed, too, which makes me think its not genetics, but I'm certainly no pro... (Are there professional zoanthid observers? Where do I sign up?). There seem to be more tie dyed ones than solid colored ones, now. I will get some pics of these posted. I think lighting has alot to do with it, but there almost needs to be some sort of uptake of 'ambient' zooxanthellea to get some of the color variations that seem to appear from one colony of zoas. Alot of mine do return to the original colors if I move them to a different spot in the tank (i.e., back to their original locations). Check out zoaid.com. They have albums of the same zoa under different conditions. A good one for comparison is the Green Bay Packer zoas. I have some that I called the Miami Dolphin zoas because they were certainly the colors of the Dolphins (and I'm a fan). Turns out, they appear to be another morph of the GB Packers. Under higher light, they pick up the Dolphin colors. Lower light, less teal and more green (IME, anyway).

I just checked out the comparison and it isn't as stark as I originally thought, but you should be able to see a difference... I guess it's only valid if we know they are the same colony at different times, though. I need to take a shot of mine now, frag them and move them back down and take a shot later. Could take a few months, though... Got time?

 

[Pandora]

It's sounding more and more like it is environmental, influenced by the zoanthelae that are inside, and what they are doing...

I know that sometimes when you change lights too drastically, the shock causes all the zoanthela to leave a coral (bleach) and then a new species will come in that are more adapted to that particular type of light, and the whole coral would change. Well, I heard of this with LPS like frogspawn and soft like nepthea at any rate. Wild that zoanthella could come in enough colors to make the tons of zoo variations we see....

I think it's cute that you come up with team colors for your zoos. I'd like to see pics of the GBP zoos, because I wanna see if they are similar to the bright green & yellow ones I have (they have bright orange in the centers too). I got them online...

EDIT: I just saw some GBP zoos in the gallery thread. They look nothing like mine (have not seen anything that does in the gallery). Mine are a really bright forest (not grass) green skirt with bright yellow & orange in the centers. Will try to get pics but there aren't many polyps.

 

[willember]

I think new variations are genetic mutations.

 

[mummra100769]

the original GBP

the original GBP

here is the original pic that got them coined GBP.

 

[metalManiac]

ive had fire and ice zoos start bleaching (only the blue part evicted) and the red stayed, the new zoos growing from them are all like the parent (no blue in them). they look kinda crappy because the part that was blue is now a dark orangeish grey. :rolleye1:

im in hope that the blue returns, but i dont think that will be the case. :sad2: