surfnvb7
Premium Member
Well, I stand corrected on this issue.
I just witnessed something amazing when I was feeding my tank with cyclopeze. Normally I don't turn the pumps off to do this, but this time I did and witnessed something amazing.
But I will say, I only witness the PE type zoas do this. And I still stand by my previous assesment that the smaller zoanthids are mostly photosynthetic, and will not eat something as large as cyclopeze. Also, I did not see any other protopaly/zoa gigantus species (such as lunar eclipse) eat in this manner.
Most of us, when we try to feed polyps, they close up around the cyclopeze, and you really cant tell if its a response to food, or the water squirting at the polyp that causes it to close around the food (the food just happens to be there as it closes).
In this case, I saw the PE polyp "puff up", with its skirts pushed back, and its mouth pushed up (exactly as how you described the behavior of your zoas in your recent thread twon8). I beleive this kinda response, is either a defense mechanism, or the "true" feeding response.
Once the mouth puffed up, I saw the green mouth actually open, and expell a long, clear string of mucus that it used to *catch* the cyclopeze. It then started to retract this long string of mucos with cyclopeze. (similar to pearls on a string). At this point, I noticed what was actually hapening and started running around the house to find my camera.
First, I gota draw a picture of the first thing I saw, as I didnt get a picture of it in time. Keep in mind that this first picture is photoshoped, to explain what I saw.
The time elapsed from the first picture I photoshoped, to the first picture I actually took was really fast, as it had already sucked up 3/4 of that mucos like string in the time it took to grab my camera and get the water surface still. So I'd say 5-10min.
I just witnessed something amazing when I was feeding my tank with cyclopeze. Normally I don't turn the pumps off to do this, but this time I did and witnessed something amazing.
But I will say, I only witness the PE type zoas do this. And I still stand by my previous assesment that the smaller zoanthids are mostly photosynthetic, and will not eat something as large as cyclopeze. Also, I did not see any other protopaly/zoa gigantus species (such as lunar eclipse) eat in this manner.
Most of us, when we try to feed polyps, they close up around the cyclopeze, and you really cant tell if its a response to food, or the water squirting at the polyp that causes it to close around the food (the food just happens to be there as it closes).
In this case, I saw the PE polyp "puff up", with its skirts pushed back, and its mouth pushed up (exactly as how you described the behavior of your zoas in your recent thread twon8). I beleive this kinda response, is either a defense mechanism, or the "true" feeding response.
Once the mouth puffed up, I saw the green mouth actually open, and expell a long, clear string of mucus that it used to *catch* the cyclopeze. It then started to retract this long string of mucos with cyclopeze. (similar to pearls on a string). At this point, I noticed what was actually hapening and started running around the house to find my camera.
First, I gota draw a picture of the first thing I saw, as I didnt get a picture of it in time. Keep in mind that this first picture is photoshoped, to explain what I saw.
The time elapsed from the first picture I photoshoped, to the first picture I actually took was really fast, as it had already sucked up 3/4 of that mucos like string in the time it took to grab my camera and get the water surface still. So I'd say 5-10min.
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