Trying to prove a point....what are these?!

[ScottR]

if you look at WWC, saltwaterfish, tidal gardens..etc for all the coral distributors... they all have different versions of the eagle eye zoa. have we all been tricked into thinking some corals are different but the same?

Truth! ;Facepalm

 

[ScottR]

Eagle eyes have almost like a triangle in the middle and look like an eagle is looking at you. The lashes are long on this one. I can’t say no but zoas are hard to identify and they can take on a different character in different tanks around fish and other corals. I gave up on zoa identification a long time ago for this reason.

 

[dutch27]

I believe the OG Eagle Eye had the longer skirt, the shorter version was the Dragon Eye (radioactive Dragon Eye being a green zoa). The Whammin Watermelons were close to the the same as the old Dragon Eye, except the skirt color was more of pale green - not the fluorescent coloring the eagle/dragon skirt had - and color on the disc was a touch different.

I'm basing this on my experience 8-9 years ago. Nowadays the old corals are re-named, shot in absurdly blue light, and have a big price thrown on. To some of us those are eagle eyes, to someone newer to hobby they may be super sayans. In the end, it's all vendor shenanigans.

 

[ScottR]

I believe the OG Eagle Eye had the longer skirt, the shorter version was the Dragon Eye (radioactive Dragon Eye being a green zoa). The Whammin Watermelons were close to the the same as the old Dragon Eye, except the skirt color was more of pale green - not the fluorescent coloring the eagle/dragon skirt had - and color on the disc was a touch different.

I'm basing this on my experience 8-9 years ago. Nowadays the old corals are re-named, shot in absurdly blue light, and have a big price thrown on. To some of us those are eagle eyes, to someone newer to hobby they may be super sayans. In the end, it's all vendor shenanigans.

I think you hit the money. I used to reef 20 years or so ago and recently got back in. I like zoas somewhat but I’ve noticed they’ve been given lots of strange names. I’m sure half are made up. Reminds me of how Maui wowie was the go-to name back in the day.

 

[TheEngineer]

They look like a brighter morph, but yes I’d say they are eagle eyes.

 

[golfer88]

I say super sunflowers that have a slight morph

 

[Will Milberger]

My expert opinion says they are......zoanthids. Make up a name and charge accordingly.

 

[ReefAddict0887]

My expert opinion says they are......zoanthids. Make up a name and charge accordingly.

What he said lol give it a fancy name and it’s worth $100 pp haha saw a guy in a fb group last night who’s had a torch that’s insanely similar to a “holy grail” for 7 years he paid like 25 a head now it’s a colony and because of someone’s idea to make it the new thing and name it he know holds a $10,000 torch colony [emoji23]

 

[littlebigreef]

Eagle eyes are just like fire and ice: everybody is a member in the club.

To that end, I had a coppery colored strain for a long time, it was just amazing.

 

[Steven w]

Eagle eyes
Long lash eagle eyes
Watermelons

Super saiyans

 

[Michael Naegeli]

Those are Eagle eyes. Some people just like to claim different names but I have had many colonies of eagle eyes for the past 20 plus years and those in your pic are for sure some eagle eyes. Those who say their not just look at vendors ever expanding names for supposed new polyps. Cmon, it’s a Zoa. Why argue about a silly name... geez. Eagle eyes are a classic, one of my all time Favs to this day.

 

[Ferrell]

Being color blind I just can’t get into the debate but my two cents... I buy for the color that looks good to me cuz I think they look great. Only way I would want to remember all the crazy names is if I were planning on raising to sell which I’m not. I have forgotten the names of mine but have a general idea.

 

[Michael Naegeli]

Being color blind I just can’t get into the debate but my two cents... I buy for the color that looks good to me cuz I think they look great. Only way I would want to remember all the crazy names is if I were planning on raising to sell which I’m not. I have forgotten the names of mine but have a general idea.

Oh Man... being color blind must be tough. Glad to hear you can still be so stoked on the Reef life. I’m such a multi color freak I couldn’t imagine not being able to see the vibrance of all the beautiful colors.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I wish I was at home right now to snag a pic. I have some eagle eyes that have been with me for a long time. They vary the lash length from one side of the rock to another, depending on how the flow hits the rock. Some of them are in my frag tank and do the same thing. The side facing the flow has short lashes, and the side away from it has longer ones. They are also slightly different in coloration due to one side being shadowed more than the other before I moved them to the frag tank.

But I agree with the old school thing, it is amazing what some of the new light setups do to zoas colors. For example, my utter chaos in a MH lit tank are super muted and the "galaxy" look is more vibrant, the ones in an LED lit tank are super bright orange with the "galaxy" look more muted and the ones in a t5 lit tank are about in between in relation to coloring. I could go on with the other types I have in those tanks, but it would never end.

 

[SouthFrags.45]

Are these eagle eyes or not?

Sunflower... or saiyan... you can tell which is which when you put them side by side. Polyp size is different and AFAIK eagle eyes has green skirts...

 

[EMeyer]

I feel like this discussion keeps avoiding the fact that makes the whole debate fairly pointless.

Colonies of wild-collected zoanthids are brought in weekly to the US, and most of them have something that looks similar to eagle eyes. These get chopped up and distributed for fairly low prices; eagle eyes arent exactly rare or hard to grow.

After a couple decades of this, there are literally hundreds of different genotypes of zoanthids floating around in the hobby that look like eagle eyes.

In other words, "eagle eyes" arent even "eagle eyes". Its a vague description of a phenotype, like "fat guy" or "redhead".

 

[afqu]

Thanks for the great comments. I had long lash eagle eyes about 18 years ago. The colony was about a foot square on my back glass. Over the years my interest peaked and valleyed and I lost them. In the last year, I have searched and searched for more. I finally found some 40 minutes from my house and bought all the frags he had. I share with a good friend. Each frag had about 10-15 pp. About a month in the tank in three different locations, all three colonies are different. Now I have long lash, short lash and color varies (a bit) as well. BTW these were advertised as OG Long lash. What does the OG mean?

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Think I posted a pic before... but what the heck, let's post it again. Here's my eagle watermelon eyes with morphs.