The best zoas to start a collection.

Good named zoas to start with, and how to tell a specific coral from a family name that covers a wide price range.

BUYING GUIDEUPDATED JUL 2026

Zoas are the cheapest way into reef collecting. A named polyp costs less than lunch, it spreads across the rock on its own, and every color pattern has a nickname and a backstory. That's how one $20 frag turns into a shelf of them. This guide covers the entry end of the market: named zoanthids worth owning, what each name covers, and what the shops CoralTicker checks ask for them.

A free account shows the lowest price in stock now at the shops CoralTicker checks. Without an account, you see what those shops typically asked in the month shown. Both come from shop listings, because a typed-in zoa price would be wrong within a month.

What a zoa name actually buys.

A zoa name is a nickname for a look, not a species. The same polyp gets sold as one thing at one shop and something else at the next, fresh names get coined on colonies that didn't need them, and the underlying science hasn't kept up — one reef-ID writeup flatly calls the whole subject of telling these apart "chaotic at best". Two rules make buying named zoas a lot calmer for it.

First, a lot of names travel in families. A Hornet or a Dragon Eye isn't one coral — it's a group of morphs — so the cheapest one wearing the name is a specific look, not "the" coral. Second, some names really do point at one recognizable morph, and those are the ones where a low price is just a low price, not a warning sign.

The names that cover a family.

These four are umbrella names. What's listed under each is one morph out of several, so no single price covers the family.

A Hornet isn't one price. Its morphs run from common to eye-watering, so match the listing photo to the morph you want before you read anything into the number.

Hornet Zoanthid

The red one came first — the original "hornet," named for its bright ring. But it started as the Devil's Aura, over at Neptune Aquatics. Where, in 2009, it was stolen off the racks — and quietly returned weeks later.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

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Start on the Dragon Eye if you're cutting your teeth — fast, bright, and unbothered by rookie lighting. What lists now is the upgraded morph line rather than the plainer original, so read the price as buying the fluorescence, not just the name.

Dragon Eye Zoanthid

A classic ringed-'eye' zoa — vivid green center, yellow skirt — now sold almost entirely as the red-ringed Radioactive and Cosmic morphs.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

Bam Bam is most people's first named zoa, and it travels under a few morph labels — Flaming, Hyper, plain Orange — so no one price fits all of them.

Bam Bam Zoanthid

A hardy, fast-growing zoa with a fiery orange skirt and a blue-ringed center — a common first named morph.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

Krakatoa needs a caveat. An ordinary polyp is entry-priced, but the top grades run many times that, so check the price history before taking any one number as the price.

Krakatoa Paly

A multicolored Palythoa — pink-to-purple centers on lime-green skirts.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked $50 to $100 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

The names that mean one coral.

These are the dependable ones. Each name reliably points at a single, recognizable morph — so what you see is what you get, without the different-coral-wearing-the-label risk that catches out named-zoa buyers.

Rasta earns its price — but watch one trap: its mirror-image cousin, the Reverse Rasta, is a genuinely different (and separately priced) morph, so make sure the listing's the one you actually want before you pay.

Rasta Zoanthid

A metallic zoa — fiery orange center, neon-green ring, blue-to-purple skirt — and one of the more sought-after community morphs.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

King Midas you can take at face value: a forgiving coral, mid-priced, and if you want one zoa that won't surprise you at either end, this is it.

King Midas Zoanthid

A metallic-gold center ringed in violet, on olive-to-gold skirts — a durable, beginner-friendly morph.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

Utter Chaos multiplies fast, so a single frag grows into a colony worth well more than the polyp you bought — a decent argument for grabbing the small, cheap listing now instead of waiting for a bigger one.

Utter Chaos Zoanthid

A purple-based zoa swirled with yellow-green and skirted in orange — chaotic enough to earn the name.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

Magician is the collector's pick of the group — uncommon rather than rare, which means you can land it, you just won't see it every week. That makes it the one on this page most worth watching the feed for, instead of counting on a lucky refresh.

Magician Zoanthid

A deep purple-red disc with a glittering teal center flecked in white — uncommon, but a fast grower.

In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.

One thing to know before you handle them.

Zoas and palys carry palytoxin, one of the more serious toxins in the hobby — but the risk is specific, not a reason to keep away from them. Keeping them in a display tank is fine. People get hurt when they cut, scrape, or boil colonies off rock and breathe the aerosol, which is how a CDC report traced a cluster of poisonings back to home aquariums. So when you frag or remove one, the danger is airborne: never strip a colony with boiling water, do any cutting or scraping in open air with the room ventilated, and keep other people out while you do — the CDC cases included people who never touched the coral and got sick from the mist. Gloves and eye protection on top of that. Worth taking, not worth fearing.

Where the zoa rabbit hole goes.

Zoas are cheap, so it's easy to keep buying them, and there are thousands of named morphs. This list covers only a few. You don't have to watch a dozen shop pages: everything new at the shops CoralTicker checks lands in one feed, and a free daily email rounds it up, so a morph that rarely turns up is easier to catch.

And if the polyp-priced end stops being enough — it happens — what named corals actually cost lays out the whole spread; at the grail end, the most-hunted acros of 2026 is where a frag the size of a pinky nail can outprice every zoa on this page combined. When one of those drops, how to actually buy it is the other half of the job.

Only some zoa names are on CoralTicker so far. If you want a morph that isn't, or think one belongs on this list, say so on one of the links below.