Zoas acted wierd, then changed color ?....

Well my zoas have been doing very well, but about a week ago half of this small colony closed up and would not open at all. The other half was completely normal. After about 4 days of not opening they finally opened and to my surprise the color was different on those polyps, so weird!

one week ago: take notice of the blue dots in the center of the polyp vs the next pic...



today: the right side of the colony is the side affected...




what the heck? it looks like green paint globs that were formed while closed. Any ideas why this happened?



- Ford

 

Absolutely no clue, but very cool. Are the new green areas raised?

 

very cool looks like the got infected with the green pigment score for you

 

It looks like they are morphing.Not unusual actually.Did you recently change anything like lighting?
Zoas collect alot of detritus and usually a gentle dusting via turkey baster will get them to open again.

 

The only thing I changed was a slight increase in vinegar dosing. The green spots are not raised, so far today the coral seems to be in perfect health, just the color difference. I feed coral frenzy about once a week to it and it gets plenty of ditritus when I clean as well. If there is any more morphing i will definitely post pics. Why do they morph by the way?

 

I've seen morphs of Eagle Eye that look like that, my guess would be the proteins inside them changed color or one type randomly starting to multiply.

 

Mine have morphed due to lighting but it was not done so quickly. If mine are high or lighting increases they get that white speckle look to one to the inner rings.

 

When I mentioned they collect detritus I mean it gets trapped around the bases of the polyps. A gentle blast from the turkey baster cleans them off. As Cheryl stated sometimes they morph because of changes in the system.

 

okay cool, as long as we are not talking about some sort of infection or something then im okay with the new color! Thanks for the help everyone.