Zoa gardens - not everybody gets along

[blasterman]

Been a few conversations about zoas and palys growing into each other and if there's potential issues with warfare. My experience is most get along, but there are exceptions and you do need to keep an eye on things.

Example below shows what I mean. My purple death colony is having a growth spurt (another win for phosphate mgmt) and is growing into a colony of gobstoppers. Where they are touching the gobstoppers are getting burned and will have to separate them.

PDs are a bit of an oddball and in my experience act more like LPS when it comes to protecting their turf. They seem to get along with their cousins nuclear greens ok, but they don't like being touched by other z

oanthids, that's for sure.

 

[BaysEndReef]

I keep my blue death palys on their own disc away from all other zoas and palys. After losing a frag of bam bams, I learned my lesson.

 

[blasterman]

Blue deaths? Cool...only seen those once. Trying to get some reds, but they are pretty uncommon and only show up at reef swaps....which 'Rona thing has suspended.

 

[blasterman]

Also, the long 'eyelash' skirts on PD's seem to be a good indicator of proper phosphate levels. They retract and shrink quickly if the paly is phosphate starved.