What causes zoas to have long or short skirts

[Austin456]

Firstly, I’m no expert on the anatomy of a zoa polyp, but I’m going to call the finger like part of the zoas their skirt because i don’t know the actual term if there even is one. Anyway I have a variety of zoas and have always thought a long skirt means a healthy zoa. Recently I have compared pictures of my Rastas to other online and have found that some have long stringy skirts while mine have very short ones. And I know there healthy because I’ve seen pictures where Rastas look like mine, but my question is what cause them to have long skirts and short skirts: Too much flow, to little flow, too much light or too little light? I’m just curious because I’ve always liked zoas with long skirts on the end, and wanted to increase the length on my Rastas if possible.

 

[Oscar47f]

Hi! Yes it’s referred to as a skirt! And secondly I’ve found it’s a matter of flow in most cases higher flow tends to bring out a longer skirt in my sunny D’s as opposed to having them in low flow, however I believe it can also be a tad bit related to tank parameters as well

 

[blasterman]

Long term stable nutrient values cause zoas and palys to develop long skirts.

If skirts are short and stunted there's a good chance either nitrate or phosphate is bouncing around too much.

 

[Austin456]

Thanks, for the info I was a little clueless. Does higher flow bring out a longer skirt in other zoas rather than sunny D’s

 

[Oscar47f]

Oh yeah

Thanks, for the info I was a little clueless. Does higher flow bring out a longer skirt in other zoas rather than sunny D’s

yes it does I just used Sunny D’s as examples... I’ve gotten long skirts from many many zoanthids not all of them get it though not sure if it’s a specific species or not... it’s not an indication of it being extremely healthy in my opinion as many of my zoas don’t have long skirts but show great color and grow which I would consider the most important factors when judging health