Are Fire and Ice Zoas or Palys?

[Stuckita]

Pretty much the title. I have a little collection of 7 zoas/palys and I'm trying to decide what should get placed near each other.

 

[therootcause]

Pretty much the title. I have a little collection of 7 zoas/palys and I'm trying to decide what should get placed near each other.

You're saying you have these zoanthids and you want to know if you can place them next to palythoa? Zoas and palys can coexist. Some may become dominant and take over an area or cover a slower grower but they will not have direct warfare with each other.

 

[Stuckita]

You're saying you have these zoanthids and you want to know if you can place them next to palythoa? Zoas and palys can coexist. Some may become dominant and take over an area or cover a slower grower but they will not have direct warfare with each other.

I think I have those... they might be a little different. They're still opening up for the first time. I was under the impression that palys grew faster so I should be careful to not place them too close to zoas.. but I think that might be bad info.

 

[John K]

I try to keep them all separated somewhat. Otherwise the cheapest ones usually overgrow the most expensive and so on.

 

[encrustingacro]

Fire and ice zoas are Zoanthus sansibaricus. A lot of what the hobby calls "Palythoa" are actually just large-polyped Zoanthus species (Z. gigantus, kuroshio, vietnamensis). True Palythoa have a rough mesoglea and capitulary ridges.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Fire and ice zoas are Zoanthus sansibaricus. A lot of what the hobby calls "Palythoa" are actually just large-polyped Zoanthus species (Z. gigantus, kuroshio, vietnamensis). True Palythoa have a rough mesoglea and capitulary ridges.

Great description. I think we as hobbyists should make this more known so peiple know that an Utter Chaos ‘paly’ is not the same hazardous ‘coral’ as the green death palythoa or the P. grandis.