Can Zoas / Palys spread beyond their rock?

Cheeze · Mar 22, 2022

I have two Palythoa frags I had glued to a piece of rubble rock. Both are always open during light periods, full of color and doing great, and after a month I'm now seeing new polyps growing from both (so cool and exciting to see!). The rubble rock is currently on the sandbed, and there is about 2 inches of space between the two frags with each on different ends of the rock.

So just thinking about the longterm, I was wondering if zoas/palys could spread outside the rock and onto the sandbed, or if they'll just stop growing new polyps once the rock real estate runs out? A nice concern to have of course!

Propagation would be the best control and answer to a crowded rock, but right now even after watching several videos of different techniques I'm nervous about cutting off polyps for fear of damaging a healthy coral.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 22, 2022

Cheeze said:
I have two Palythoa frags I had glued to a piece of rubble rock. Both are always open during light periods, full of color and doing great, and after a month I'm now seeing new polyps growing from both (so cool and exciting to see!). The rubble rock is currently on the sandbed, and there is about 2 inches of space between the two frags with each on different ends of the rock.

So just thinking about the longterm, I was wondering if zoas/palys could spread outside the rock and onto the sandbed, or if they'll just stop growing new polyps once the rock real estate runs out? A nice concern to have of course!

Propagation would be the best control and answer to a crowded rock, but right now even after watching several videos of different techniques I'm nervous about cutting off polyps for fear of damaging a healthy coral.

Always as mine frequently does

Utubereefer · Mar 22, 2022

Moana zoas …. Sorry Dad joke

aaraya1516 · Mar 22, 2022

Cheeze said:
I have two Palythoa frags I had glued to a piece of rubble rock. Both are always open during light periods, full of color and doing great, and after a month I'm now seeing new polyps growing from both (so cool and exciting to see!). The rubble rock is currently on the sandbed, and there is about 2 inches of space between the two frags with each on different ends of the rock.

So just thinking about the longterm, I was wondering if zoas/palys could spread outside the rock and onto the sandbed, or if they'll just stop growing new polyps once the rock real estate runs out? A nice concern to have of course!

Propagation would be the best control and answer to a crowded rock, but right now even after watching several videos of different techniques I'm nervous about cutting off polyps for fear of damaging a healthy coral.

I have had zoas spread to the bed, it wasn't fine sand though.
When they got big and started getting on the bed I used a fraging kit to cut the zoas and propagate to other rocks. Just use a CLEAN scalpel and cut the polyps off as they hit the sand. Glue them to other rocks and watch them spread like crazy.