3. Candy Apple Reds

With amazing colors on both the zoanthus plate and skirt, it’s no wonder that Candy Apple Reds are some of the most desired zoas in the hobby.  We’ve gathered a lot of attention on this site for featuring this zoa so chances are if you have some in your collection, you can get some great trades for it! Have you seen other rainbow zoas as bright as these?

2. Purple Deaths

The majestic Purple Deaths paly gets a lot of attention in this hobby due to its color and its size. These paly’s certainly seem like they are large enough to swallow up whole critters. If you have these in your collection, we would love to hear how you are taking care of them. What conditions have you found to be ideal for these?

1. Purple Hornets

Deep colors zoas are a favorite amongst zoa collectors. Combine deep colors with bright florescent markings, you have a collectors item!  Purple Hornets, the darker cousin of the Blue Hornets is now one of the hobby’s most sought out zoas – even more than the Purple People Eaters! If you have these, please share them with the community so they can be more widely distributed and preserved.

The Joker’s paly is a polyp coral that contains a purple body and a green skirt. It’s very similar to the Purple People Eater (PPE) and have often been mistaken for it by newbies. However, while similar, it’s polyps are not as big as PPE’s and it lacks a neon green mouth.

I would guess that the Joker’s paly was not named because it looks like the Joker or that it has colors that are similar to a clown. It may have been named Joker’s because for many PPE hopefuls, this paly has played a cruel joke on them and shattering their dreams.

However, if you can look beyond the named zoas fad, this is a pretty cool morph seeing how deep purple morphs are not all that common except for a couple of morphs. You feeling the funny yet?

Despite it being one of the plainer morphs compared to some of the more recent discoveries, this giant polyp palythoa (or zoa) commands attention in private tanks and is often sought after by zoa collectors.

You can note its distinctive features by its size, the neon green skirts, the deep purple colored plate and its distinctive neon green mouth which is now grouped as the “People Eaters” feature.

The origin of PPE’s came from Blane Perun’s online store Farms of the Sea where he describes the PPE’s in more detail.

I obtained this colony by chance in or around 2001. In addition I have a matching zoanthids colony, as to where I believe this to be Palythoa or Protopalythoa. After about 1 year the specimen began coloring up and I sold off about 15 fragments for $25-$35 bucks each,ironically most of these people complained about the piece when they got it. The colony at that time still was not mature, not reaching it’s full beauty. The following year I sold propagation’s for about $40 bucks and people were outraged, So I stopped but soon saw them selling on ebay for about $200.

Although the original high listing price was set to help a charity, it inadvertently set the status for this morph and helped set the precedent for high prices for reefers who desperately wanted this paly. PPE’s slow growth also contributed to its inability to meet demand, thus continuing the high price points which are often found on the Internet for collectors who simply MUST own a frag of this morph.

So what are your thoughts on this matter? Is the PPE worth it?