Blue hornet zoa help

[Capt56]

Hey all. I've had one polyp of a blue hornet zoa since last year. It's alive but not growing. Does anybody have any input? All my other Zoas are growing. Water parameters are good. Using kessil 350W for lights.

 

[KirbyBTF]

I read about this exact scenario in Coral Propagation and Aquaculture by Anthony Calfco today, from what I remember this means the coral is happy as a clam. So you don't NEED to do anything different. But to see growth you need to supplement the lighting with additional feeding, not so much particulate foods as micro foods that are dissolved in the water column. Also, this means your lighting is sufficient but the coral could be moved to find better lighting in your tank. With the exact correct lighting the coral will not need to use as much energy doing one of two things. 1. Too low lighting requires the coral to focus all its energy into expanding to increase surface area and receive more light and then using yet more energy converting that light into sustenance 2. Too high of lighting makes the zooxanthelae in the zoos tissue produce too much oxygen which inhibits coral growth. Which is why a lot of people spend a decent amount of time finding just the right spot for their coral. When it's receiving just the right amount of light, the coral can focus all its energy on reproducing.The addition of extra foods gives the coral just that much more energy for reproducing.
In the words of Anthony Calfco "Feed it, it's hungry!"
Hope that helps :beer:

 

[Capt56]

Well said! I'm gonna try it.