40b

[nterry]

I am thinking about building a zoa garden. I've never been terribly successful with zoas--I can keep them alive, but they never look as nice once I bring them home. Anyway, I have a spare 40 breeder and I'm thinking about LED lights. Ecotechs are cool enough, but I'm not sure if the XR15 will be enough or if the XR30 will be overkill. I've also considered doing a pair of AI primes cause they'd be cheaper. Other light suggestions appreciated. There's a bunch of other choices out there too.

Also thinking about flow--would a pair of vortech 10s be enough if I kept the rockwork light? Or would I need to go with a pair of 40s. Seems like overkill, but I understand zoas like their flow. And I don't mind mixing lighting and pump manufacturers. The gyre pumps sure look cool, but a breeder is pretty small.

I will probably just skip doing a reef and just use eggcrate. I also have collected a whole series of frag rocks over the years and might use a few of those too.

I will probably try to keep a few small fishes (love firefish and maybe a few gobies, grammas, etc). A few rocks under the eggcrate?

Cheers,

nterry

 

[eastlake]

The mp10s would work just fine and the flow control on them is nice if it seems like you are needing to give the zoas more or less flow, personally I'm a gyre man myself and have an xf-130 running at about 60% on one side of my 150 gallon and absolutely love it, if you dial the percentage back one of their smaller units should work out for you just fine. I think red sea is releasing a smaller model as well in the next year or so if you wanted to look into that a bit more. As for the lights, there are plenty of options out there. With the ones that you specifically mentioned they would both be fine as a lot/most of zoas don't need to be absolutely blasted with lights and the 40 breeder is shallow enough that you would not be running either the radions or the primes at full tilt, personally I use mars aqua and they grow zoas great. Are you going to be running a sump?You mentioned that you might not have a ton of rock in the tank, if you're going to do an egg crate platform I would put as many rocks(rubble sized and up) underneath there as possible and definitely consider running a refugium and/or a biopellet reactor so that you have all of that good bacteria working hard for you, not to mention it would give your fish a place to call home. Zoas are hands down my favorite coral and still haven't seen much that rivals a well grown in zoa garden.

 

[AlSimmons]

For a 40 gallon Zoanthid garden I would just get 3 Koralia Evolution 1150's, a reliable heater and a Kessil A360WE. (maybe a spectral controller too) You can always top it off manually and if things get out of hand (meaning parameters) you can get a HOB skimmer. Keep it simple. GL.

BTW having a HOB filter wouldn't be such a bad idea either. You can use this for both mechanical & chemical filtration if need be.

 

[nterry]

Thanks. I won't be using a sump. Perhaps a HOB refugium if I am feeling ambitious, but definitely a HOB protein skimmer. I am intrigued by the possibility of the Mars Aqua or some of the similar products out there. The Viparspectra also seems to get very good amazon reviews. I am actually thinking it might be fun to do a double 40b--I already have a double stand currently used for freshwater. I could do an LPS tank on the bottom. And having a cheaper lighting set makes this more reasonable.

The rubble rock is a good idea..

 

[Deedles]

I have the Ocean Revive T247 that's available on Amazon, and my zoas seem to be doing well.