Coloring up your zoas

[dannyab84]

Hey guys! Was wondering if we could share tips on how to get better color on our Zoa's. I wanted to show you my results from my utter chaos frags. As you can see from the pictures the utter chaos on the left front from which was under a metal halide is much more bright and has a much better color then the one on the right along with the 2 In the back. They are both from the same mother colony and have been fragged the same day. However those frags with the less color are from my main tank with LEDs. I don't feed differently in the two tanks so it leaves me to believe the color is only from the light. And these have been the results for almost all my zoa frags. There are a few exceptions like my lunars though. Maybe I should try a different type of food since I only use pellet food and goni powder. Has anyone had any luck in bringing out color under LEDs and have a trick they would like to share ?

 

[dannyab84]

Hah well double picture with them rotating to the side... My luck... But now the brighter one is the bottom right.

 

[scsdukefan408]

Yeah they dealer that so me mine showed me a utter that was kept up high and one that was kept in low light and the one in low light was brighter but smaller and one up high was darker but bigger polyp

 

[dannyab84]

Ive been told that this is because of the way the zoa has to break down their food and sunlight. And the harder they have to work then the brighter the color. Very good point though! Maybe my LEDs are just ramped up too high and for a bit to high.

 

[stephnewman41]

I have 250w metal halides and usually get best color on most of my zoas/palys when they are in more light compared to less light. I kind of feel that the more light they get would make them brighter and less light would make them darker not the other way around. Maybe too much light has the same affect as too little light.

 

[dannyab84]

Yeah too much light can cause browning. I tested that with my darth mauls. I put one at the very top of my led tank and one as far away as possible. The one on the top lost almost all of its color. On the other hand, it did grow a new head every few days. The ones at the bottom kept the red coloring but, as expected did not grow as fast. I think my next test will be far away with lots of target feeding. Maybe that will give the best results? The medium light seems to be ok too. I just want to maximize and have the best as possible on all my zoa's.

 

[Laker32]

My Utters brightened up a lot more when I moved them up higher for more light. They have grown about 2 polyps a month.

 

[duke4130]

Utters can handle higher lighting. I have always had mine in the top half of the tank and they grow like a weed and the orange is super neon

 

[tuna_bullet]

my zoas grow like crazy lots of light and lots of food....you have to figure out lower light and brighter light depending on the zoa...and flow..... i have found flow is lesser of a issue....i run 14 hours of light...and get a couple polyps a week on the bigger colonys and and at least one babbie every other week on the smaller colonies....imo