Will different kinds of zoas sting each other?

[StephLionfish]

A nerd question....but I was curious. If say....Fire and Ice colony grew close and touched Miami Hurricane Colony would anything happen? Would they slime/sting each other? Would they just stop growing where they touched....or grow over each other?

OK, just read that they won't sting each other...but will they try to grow over each other?

 

[MikeandNicole]

The short answer is yes they can. One can outgrow the other and drown it out. If you see large zoa colonies you can see different ones mixed in so they can survive with each other but it is hard to say which ones won't drown the other out.

 

[StephLionfish]

Ah, OK thank you.

 

[JuliusJames]

IME I've never had any problems, I've had many zoas touch each other and even attached different zoas onto a big rock with no problems. As long as a colony of zoas is not surrounded by other zoas where they have no room to multiply.

 

[klrreef]

The only polyps that will sting other polyps are protopalythoa:Captain America,Purple Death,Nuke Green,Button Polyps,etc.

Like said above zoas can be put on the same rock,but the faster growing zoa will drown out all of the rest of the zoas,over time of course.

 

[StephLionfish]

Hm, thanks guys. LFS has some gorgeous lime greens with brown skirts....but they are on a rock with two other zoas that are larger colonies then the greens...I would have bought the rock just for the green/browns....had the rock not been so expensive :headwallblue:
I really, really liked them too

 

[Hook]

They look really good till they start overgrowing each other though!!!

 

[A. Grandis]

I don't think that different zoas (zoanthus spp.) will ever sting each other.
I never saw that nor ever heard about that before. So the answer for the first question is probably no. They are actually very friendly to each other and actually like to grow together!!
Some small soft corals also love to grow with smaller species of zoas!!

Some Protopalythoa spp. could sting some corals and perhaps some zoas? Yes!
But the zoas would just try to overgrow some corals, not to sting.

Palythoa spp. like to push other zoanthids away, but peacefully, in the long run.

Answer for the second question : Yes, zoas can overgrow other zoas' species, but most of the time they grow together in piece. When they overgrow they don't show signs of fight or damage. They like it!!! It's beautiful.

Maybe some other people had different experiences out there...

Grandis.

 

[Piper27]

A grandis I agree All my zoas and palys grow together well and even the grandis and such grow with the zoas.

 

[caudill187]

I wouldn't put a fast growing zoa on the same rock with a slower growing zoa that I like.....unless I plan on fragging the fast growing one frequently. They will overgrow each other.

 

[StephLionfish]

So, just to be clear, when they run out of room to grow ( say other zoas are all around them) they just grow over their neighbors? Then why to places even sell zoa rocks with a bunch of zoas mixed in?

 

[caudill187]

I think probably more aggressive species/morphs of zoas will outgrow other zoas simply as a factor of growth rate and sometimes secrete hormones that retard the growth of others. The rocks in stores are usually chiseled off pieces of larger rocks with several different morphs growing together as they would on a reef. Sometimes but not always, a "snapshot" in time, if you will, of one morph infiltrating and taking over the space of another colony. Over time in a captive system, one or more of the species on these rocks will often but not always be overtaken, ending up with a colony of one or two morphs.

 

[MikeandNicole]

Just to give you a real life scenario, I had a nice mini colony of nuclear greens (probably around 50+ polyps give or take) on a nice piece of rock. I made the mistake of putting a small frag (5-6 polyps) of pink and gold zoas on the same rock about 2 inches away. The pink and greens overwhelmed and grew into the NG completely drowning them out. I would up taking the rock to a friend and he chiseld the whole rock up seperating the two colonies (by this time probably had around 40 png and 20 ng). He kept the pink and golds and I kept the NGs, the ngs are recovering and I still have about 20 or so polyps left. The pink and gold were a freebie and I should have just given them so someone else.

 

[Lynnmw1208]

The short answer is yes they can. One can outgrow the other and drown it out. If you see large zoa colonies you can see different ones mixed in so they can survive with each other but it is hard to say which ones won't drown the other out.

+1 It's not great to mix miami hurricane with radioactive dragon's eye. I got a rock of this from DD and the miami hurricane is drowing how the dragon's eye