Am i going nuts? Zoa's changing colors big time??

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pravdaseeker

Active member
Joined
Nov 6, 2010
Messages
31
Location
arizona
Hello all,

Finally got the pics to support what I am seeing, wondering if you folks have seen this, or if it is normal?

These two pics are about 1 week apart in being taken..

Please notice on the one pic the zoa's on the front edge of the rock being GREEN...

The next pic shows a BUNCH of these previously GREEN ones are NOW turning red, or ORANGE in color!!

At first I thought, "Oh crap... the lighting isn't right, and I am going to lose the whole dang colony!!!" So I left them in place and watched for other signs, like CLOSED polyps, or EXTRA LONG necks on the polyps, any signs of BLEACHING, etc.. nope not really...nothing noticed, so I waited.

SOOOoooo, do these green puppies, turn orange after a while? What gives? lol. So new to this, and this was an experiment to see if zoa's would grow in my tank.. with my lighting, etc..the fish love it, but will zoa's?? he he.

I just reopened and compared the two photos again, to make sure this isn't a bogus post..lol.. Yep, they ARE turning orange!! The eyes are even looking nice and colorful...right????????????

Maybe this is normal as all get out, and I just haven't read about it somewhere on here yet! LOL...

For a few days I was sure they were dying or something..but they were acting normal, as far as I could tell, now this..color change thing..

HELP? Am I going nuts, is this normal? Or do I have some alien morphing zoa's from Mars??

Pravdaseeker
 
i would def get them aips away from them zoa's asap wot you can do is mix up a super concentrated salt mix and let them aips have it full in the face. and yes they are def changing colour, which they do do from time to time
 
Yes, you're going nuts! Okay, maybe not. They do appear to have changed colors, OR one color is aggressively taking over the other color. I've had Zoanthids change color though, even after spending a long time in the same spot in my tank. Not a drastic change, but definitely a noticeable color shift.
 
What you have to remeber is that what gives the coral its color is the zooxanthellae that live with in it. Now with in the zooxanthellae you have certain pigments. Now depending on the light photons being put on them one or two pigments will become dominant and thus be the overall color of the coral. That one thing, the other is that zooxanthellae will move on thier own or sometimes they are exspelled by the host and begin to look for a new home. In looking at you Zoo's and how close the two colors from each other I would say its safe to say that one breed of zooxanthellae are making a run at dominance.


Mojo
 

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