TUG Candy Apple Zoanthid – Aquacultured Frag

Description

TUG Candy Apple Zoanthid – Aquacultured Frag is offered under the retail name shown in the product title.

This is an aquacultured zoanthid frag sold under the TUG Candy Apple trade name. Trade names describe the aquarium morph, not a verified species. Apparent color can vary with spectrum, intensity, nutrients, and photography.

Care Guide

• Lighting: Medium — PAR 100–250. Acclimate gradually after shipping or a major lighting change.
• Flow: Medium, indirect flow that prevents debris from settling without keeping the polyps closed.
• Placement: Sandbed or rockwork with suitable light and room for the colony to spread.
• Compatibility: Low direct stinging risk, but the colony can spread into adjacent coral space.
• Feeding: Direct feeding is optional. Fine suspended foods may be offered sparingly.

Handling safety: Treat all zoanthids and palythoas as potentially containing palytoxin. Wear gloves and eye protection, keep them away from cuts and your face, wash tools and hands after handling, and never boil or expose the colony or its rock to hot water or steam.

Keep salinity and temperature stable, change one variable at a time, and allow newly shipped polyps time to reopen.

Shipping: Ships UPS Next Day Air from Key West. Current eligibility and delivery timing are shown at checkout.

What to expect when it arrives

Zoas ship closed. Every polyp will be shut tight and the frag may look like nothing at all when you lift it out of the bag. That is expected and it is not a sign of damage. Float the sealed bag 15 minutes, drip acclimate for 30 to 45 minutes, and dip before the frag goes anywhere near your display.

The dip is not optional with zoanthids. Zoa-eating nudibranchs and sundial snails are small, well camouflaged, and arrive on frags from every source including ours. A coral dip and a careful look at the underside of the plug takes ten minutes and prevents the loss of an entire collection.

Expect polyps to begin opening within 24 to 48 hours. A frag that stays fully closed past four or five days is worth investigating — check flow first, then look for pests with a magnifier.

Placement, and why color changes

Put the frag low and moderate on the first pass. Zoanthids tolerate a wide PAR band, but the same morph will look substantially different at 80 PAR than at 180, and the change takes two to three weeks to complete. Judge color after that window, not before. Many keepers move a zoa too early, decide the morph was misrepresented, and never see what it would have become.

Growth, and keeping the colony contained

A healthy frag puts out new polyps around the perimeter within a few weeks. Growth rate varies enormously by morph — common morphs can double in a couple of months while prized ones stay slow, which is exactly why the slow ones stay expensive. Zoas will spread onto any surface they touch, so mount the frag on an island rock if you do not want the colony crossing onto neighbors.

The safety rule that is not negotiable

Zoanthids and palythoa carry palytoxin. Never boil, scrape, cut, or pressure-wash rock carrying them. Wear gloves and eye protection when fragging, work in a ventilated space, and do not handle them with an open cut. People have been hospitalized by cleaning a rock in a closed bathroom. Treat every colony as though it carries it, because you cannot tell by looking.