Yoda Zoanthid

Yoda is a Zoanthus selection with dark purple faces, a broken yellow-green ring around the mouth, and short lashes banded in orange. The contrast is graphic — near-black purple discs lit by the lime ring and ember-orange fringe — and a settled mat looks like a cluster of little watching eyes, which is where the name earns its keep.

Care is the standard zoanthid recipe: low to medium light, medium flow, and placement from the bottom to the middle of the rockwork. Yoda grows at the usual fast zoanthid pace once settled, spreading by stolons over neighboring rock. Give it about two inches of room; it carries no meaningful sting, but a fast mat will shade slower neighbors in time.

Feed the tank, not the polyp: Yoda takes most of its nutrition from light and dissolved organics, and broadcast feeding the tank keeps the mat fat and the colors saturated. Stable alkalinity and a little nitrate in the water suit it better than ultra-low-nutrient conditions, where zoanthids generally sulk and shrink.

Field notes — what keepers report: Dark-faced zoanthids like Yoda deepen toward purple-black under stronger blue light, while the mouth ring stays lime — the contrast keepers buy it for. Under dim light the polyps stretch and the ring fades, so keepers place it higher than most zoas or give it a brighter shelf than its care minimum suggests.