Influencing the color of Zoa's?

My only concern with the injection method would be the fact there's a certain "area" where the zooxanthellae take up residence in the corals. In the clam scenario, the zooxanthellae are added to the water and there's a natural process by which the clams inherit their symbiotic algae. I don't know how well it's understood.

Might be something try out with zoas as well? Liquifying a few zoanthids isn't quite as costly as liquifying your prize Tridacna.

I'm glad I'm not a clam farmer...I wouldn't have the heart for it!
 
Another update:

Injected Zoa's are starting to show subtle color changes. They started out with a white mouth and now have a yellow mouth. There is also some yellow speckles in the tissue surrounding the mouth.
Before injection:
whitemouth.jpg

After injection:
yellowmouth.jpg

:bum:
 
I injected zooxanthellae from bright orange Zoa (Bam Bam). The only stress I noticed was that they stayed closed for 6 days. They started to open back on the 4th day, but today is the 1st that they fully reopened. It's still too early to tell if the change will stay or if it's finished changing yet. I'll post more pic's as they progress.
 
I injected in the side just below the skirt. I aimed it toward the center. I don't have a pic of the injection and you can't see it now.
 
Hey, maybe you could inject the cells into freshwater fish and market them to uniformed freshwater hoobyist as 'glow-in-the-dark' fish.

$$$$$$$$$

oh...wait, someone beat us to that.

Seriously though, I am interested in the thought of a reactor for cultivating zoanthellae and using it the encourage coloring of bleached corals. Keep us posted.
 
This thread is really interesting. I would really like to know how you removed the zoox from the orange zoas? Syringe as suggested above or another method?
 
I used a insulin hypodermic needle to remove the zoanthellae and the same hypo to then inject it into the host.
 
This is a cool idea and I think it would be sweet if it worked. IMO, this would require some real research into the anotomy of zoanthids, what is the makeup zooxanthellae, things like this. I am not saying it can't be done, just don't think it's going to be as easy as sticking a needle into one zoa and sucking out some guts and then injecting into another zoa. This stuff happens on a cellular level and require a much more precise lab environement.

JMO,,,, keep us posted though, maybe you will with the Nobel Price for Zoanthid Coloring this year :lol:

Another thing I have thought about is, do we know that the zooxanthellae is actually different from coral to coral? Maybe the zooxanthellae is the same, but just reacts differently to the cells (dna) of the corals they are in? This might explain why the zoas will stay the same colors and keep very distinct patterns as they spread. Just thinking out loud...
 
Hey guys...so I did a bunch of molecular biology on marine bacteria and phytoplankton for my dissertation (just to let you know my background). I felt fairly informed in my first post within this thread but since then I have been researching this a bit more and now am not sure about what I said.

Here's what I am reasonably certain is true: when a coral bleaches, it goes white because of two things. Firstly, it may lose zooxanthellae. Secondly, the zooxanthellae within the coral that are not lost may lose pigments themselves.

So it seems to follow that the corals derive color from the zooxanthellae. That's why I thought that it would be different species of zooxanthellae that make up the different...like rings of color in a zoo...or different colors of the skirt, ya know?

I'm researching this a bit (and asking some people who are more informed on coral molecular biology than me) so...basically...I will have to chime in later. Let me do some more research and hopefully someone who does coral research also looks at RC and these kinds of threads. Maybe we can hear from an expert!

BUT these two advanced aquarist articles are great.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature2/view

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/1/aafeature1
 
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Thanks Mel, It would be good to hear from the experts, I'm just a hobbyist with a dirty needle. :D (Thanks Rev)What I do know so far is that the host Zoa has not had an adverse reaction to having another Zoa's zooxanthellae injected into it. So they must be genetically similar or the host would have most likely died as a result of tissue rejection. I have only tried this on Zoa's that have the same physical characteristics, not say from Paly to Zoa. I haven't noticed any drastic color changes but that may happen over time as the new zooxanthellae multiplies.
:bum:
 
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