Jarred1
Active member
That has been a great debate for a long long time regarding zoas, I have noticed a little something over the course of a year or so with a small colony of zoas. I currently have 3 tanks. One is meant for SPS corals which is a 40 breeder, another is currently holding most of my SPS corals but isn't as clean as the 40 breeder, this tank is a 20 high. My last tank is a 20 long, that doesn't grow coralline or SPS well but LPS and soft corals do well.
Here is a list of equipment for each tank:
40 Breeder (2 months or so old)
20 High (year old)
20 Long (3 years old)
The 20 long has a black clown and a coral beauty. The 20 high has a starry blenny. The 40 breeder has no fish currently, had a yellow tang, flame angel, 2 randall's anthias and a yasha goby. They all have very similar clean-up crews.
The maintenance on the tanks are similar in regards to feedings but a very different in regards to tank cleanliness. I usually put a pinch of freeze dried Cyclop-eeze in twice daily, a few times a week I will either feed frozen mysis or H2O coral food. The 20 high and the 40 breeder get weekly water changes of 10% of their volumes; the 20 long gets monthly water changes of 10% of its volume. The 20 high is dosed daily with 5ml of ESV B-Ionic cal and alk.
Test Results for each tank, all readings are from today (pH, NH3, NO2, NO3 tested with API/ Alk, Cal, Mag tested with Redsea Pro tests/ Salinity tested with refractometer/ PO4 tested with Hanna checker). I know these tests aren't tests from when this coral was in the different tanks but I believe my levels are relatively stable and don't change much.
40 Breeder
20 High
20 Long
Now that you kind of see what my tanks are like we can move on to my real question. I am going to focus on one zoanthid in particular; it has a brownish oral disk with gold sparkles and a dark pink skirt. I purchased this frag about a year ago from a local reefer. I originally put the frag into the 20 high; it did well but didn't grow much. I kept getting knocked over buy my CUC and falling into the sand. I took it out of that tank and put it into the 20 long. It did great in there and grew very well. During the time in that tank I was fading away from the hobby and didn't do much in terms of maintenance on that tank. One day it closed up for a few days and when it did open it was all black with no gold sparkles. I left it alone for a few more days to see what it was doing and they continued to get worse. I took them out of that tank and put them back into the 20 high. For a few days they remained closed but they opened up again. They began to grow again and regain some of their color. During that time I gave my friend a 20 or so polyp frag in a trade about 2 weeks ago. I took the original colony out of the 20 high and put them into the 40 breeder about a month after it was set up. They have been in there for a little over a month now and the growth has been GREAT. They are growing like mad and I want to know what you all think the reason for this growth is. I am not sure why they are growing so well in a clean tank like the 40. They aren't getting nearly as much light in the 40 as they were getting in the 20 high. I will be taking the 20 high down and using that 150w halide over the 40 breeder, there will be 2 150w halides over it.
Pictures:
July 11, 2011 (20 high)
January 9, 2012 (20 long)
January 14, 2012 (20 long)
February 15, 2012
February 15, 2012
March 3, 2012 (20 high, the beginning of the frag for my buddy. Colony was in this tank at the time, because the polyps turned black in the 20 long)
March 23, 2012 (40 breeder; colony on the left side of the tank)
May 14, 2012 (40 breeder)
Now that you got to see the growth I got, why do you guys think they did so well in the 40 breeder?
Here is a list of equipment for each tank:
40 Breeder (2 months or so old)
- 150w FNI Metal Halide
- 2x 12w Ecoxotic Panorama LED strips (Royal Blue)
- SWC Mini HOT Skimmmer (rated for 90g tank)
- Drs Foster and Smith HOB Surface Skimming power filter
- Vortech MP10 (Reef Crest Mode 100%)
- Koralia 2 (600 GPH)
- Koralia Nano (425 GPH)
- JBJ ATO
- 75w Hydor Heater
20 High (year old)
- 150w FNI Metal Halide
- Koralia 1 ( GPH)
- Drs Foster and Smith Surface Skimmer
- 50w Hydor Heater
20 Long (3 years old)
- Koralia 1 ( GPH)
- Emperor 400 HOB Filter
- 4x 24w FNI T5HO (3 Blue Plus, 1 UVL Indigo Sun)
- 50w Tetra Heater
The 20 long has a black clown and a coral beauty. The 20 high has a starry blenny. The 40 breeder has no fish currently, had a yellow tang, flame angel, 2 randall's anthias and a yasha goby. They all have very similar clean-up crews.
The maintenance on the tanks are similar in regards to feedings but a very different in regards to tank cleanliness. I usually put a pinch of freeze dried Cyclop-eeze in twice daily, a few times a week I will either feed frozen mysis or H2O coral food. The 20 high and the 40 breeder get weekly water changes of 10% of their volumes; the 20 long gets monthly water changes of 10% of its volume. The 20 high is dosed daily with 5ml of ESV B-Ionic cal and alk.
Test Results for each tank, all readings are from today (pH, NH3, NO2, NO3 tested with API/ Alk, Cal, Mag tested with Redsea Pro tests/ Salinity tested with refractometer/ PO4 tested with Hanna checker). I know these tests aren't tests from when this coral was in the different tanks but I believe my levels are relatively stable and don't change much.
40 Breeder
- pH: 8.0
- NH3: 0 ppm
- NO2: 0 ppm
- NO3: 0 ppm
- Salinity: 33.5 PPT
- Cal: 420 ppm
- Alk: 8.4 dKH
- Mag: 1400 ppm
- Temp: 78
- PO4: .06 ppm
20 High
- pH: 8.1
- NH3: 0 ppm
- NO2: 0 ppm
- NO3: 0 ppm
- Salinity: 33 ppt
- Cal: 430 ppm
- Alk: 9.8 ppm
- Mag: 1320 ppm
- Temp: 78.9
- PO4: 0 ppm (tank has bubble and hair algae growing in it)
20 Long
- pH: 7.8
- NH3: 0 ppm
- NO2: 0 ppm
- NO3: 0 ppm
- Salinity: 31 ppt
- Cal: 480 ppm
- Alk: 8 dKH
- Mag: 1260 ppm
- Temp: 78
- PO4: 2.50 ppm
Now that you kind of see what my tanks are like we can move on to my real question. I am going to focus on one zoanthid in particular; it has a brownish oral disk with gold sparkles and a dark pink skirt. I purchased this frag about a year ago from a local reefer. I originally put the frag into the 20 high; it did well but didn't grow much. I kept getting knocked over buy my CUC and falling into the sand. I took it out of that tank and put it into the 20 long. It did great in there and grew very well. During the time in that tank I was fading away from the hobby and didn't do much in terms of maintenance on that tank. One day it closed up for a few days and when it did open it was all black with no gold sparkles. I left it alone for a few more days to see what it was doing and they continued to get worse. I took them out of that tank and put them back into the 20 high. For a few days they remained closed but they opened up again. They began to grow again and regain some of their color. During that time I gave my friend a 20 or so polyp frag in a trade about 2 weeks ago. I took the original colony out of the 20 high and put them into the 40 breeder about a month after it was set up. They have been in there for a little over a month now and the growth has been GREAT. They are growing like mad and I want to know what you all think the reason for this growth is. I am not sure why they are growing so well in a clean tank like the 40. They aren't getting nearly as much light in the 40 as they were getting in the 20 high. I will be taking the 20 high down and using that 150w halide over the 40 breeder, there will be 2 150w halides over it.
Pictures:
July 11, 2011 (20 high)
January 9, 2012 (20 long)
January 14, 2012 (20 long)
February 15, 2012
February 15, 2012
March 3, 2012 (20 high, the beginning of the frag for my buddy. Colony was in this tank at the time, because the polyps turned black in the 20 long)
March 23, 2012 (40 breeder; colony on the left side of the tank)
May 14, 2012 (40 breeder)
Now that you got to see the growth I got, why do you guys think they did so well in the 40 breeder?
