Utter Chaos

Zoanthus, a zoanthid. Beginner to keep, Typical PAR 75–150, moderate flow.

Rarity tier: uncommon, reviewed 2026-08.

A purple face splattered and swirled with white and yellow-green speckling around a teal mouth, under a frilly orange skirt that sometimes bands orange and purple. The speckling is chaotic by definition, which is where the name comes from.

How to tell it is the real thing

The irregularity is the point: evenly ringed orange zoas get sold under this name constantly. Ask for a shot under white light, not blues. Do not expect a colony to match itself either, because individual polyps differ from their own neighbours on this one, so an unmatched pair is not evidence of a mixed colony.

Keeping zoanthids

Low to middle rock, enough flow to keep detritus off the mat. Utter Chaos is beginner to keep at a typical PAR of 75–150 in moderate flow. A typical starting range for this type of coral rather than a measured requirement for this morph. Spectrum, how it was acclimated and the system it grew in all move it.

Full care notes for zoanthids

What Utter Chaos goes for

No verified sales yet. A range publishes once 3 dated, checkable records from 3 different sources exist, priced per polyp and reported as a median, with what shops ask kept separate from what buyers paid. One polyp, so a ten-polyp frag is divided by ten. Listings that do not state the count are dropped rather than assumed. Nothing on this page is for sale. Shops are typically asking $12 to $27 per polyp, median $17, across 16 shops surveyed on 2026-09-07; the full sweep ran $8 to $47. Asking prices are what sellers want, not what buyers paid. On 2026-09-07 it was in stock at 16 surveyed shops: barrierreefaquariums.com, coralsanonymous.com, coralscoral.com, cornbredcorals.com, ghicorals.com, northstarcoral.com, and 10 more.

All shops in the survey.

Easily confused with