Zoa Morphs

I think they morph based on the quality of light that they receive, and probably some other stuff. I don't know if its possible to make them morph though. Maybe somebody else will chime in that knows for sure. Sounds like a good experiment to try though.
-Kevin

 

You don't morph them, they morph due to the conditions. The same zoanthid can look like 6 different types in 6 different places in the same tank. The same zoanthid looked nothing, and I mean nothing, like itself between my display, diablitaroja's display, and my nano, all in the same room in our last apartment.

 

So I suppose you could "morph" it in the absolute loosest of terms by splitting it up and moving it around to different areas of the tank.

 

Also just as a thought. I've heard zoa's can "color up" if you use a higher kelvin light. 6700 and 10,000 might make them loose some of their color. Whereas 14k and 20k might make them develop better color.

 

In my experience light spectrum is not as important as light intensity, and higher K lighting can bring out some colors better than lower K lighting will. Turn off your daylight lighting and most zoanthids will look great under actinics, it's not that the colors aren't there, just that you don't see them. Same as everything looks great under actinics, and everything looks brown under 6500K.

 

I've had a new revelation about this topic. I have zoa's that started in the same tank. Looking exactly the same. I now have half of them in my new ap12 with a 70 metal halide 14K bulb and half under 72 watts of pc lighting in a bc14. The ones under the 14K have changed. They started out ugly and brownish and have become more tealish, with skirts that are green. I'll try to take some pictures to show the difference. I don't have pics of the zoas when I initially put them in the new tank but they were ugly.

 

Bad news stuff. I've also read that Zoa's can shoot a little squirt of bacteria if they're irritated enough. Some people have managed to get this in there eye. There's some horror stories out there about it. Also some pictures to see what it did. I saw a Zoa shoot one night when I was fragging it. Good thing it didn't get near me.