Frag pack any problems with these

[santanzchild]

Ive never tried any sort of coral before so I bought a Zoa frag pack on ebay the other day. They showed up last night and I got everyone dipped and put in the tank.

Are any of these going to turn into a weed or need anything special?

I have 4 80w T5 VHO and 3 250w MH and they are sitting in the sand bed for right now. Didnt want to put them to close to the lights so it seemed like a safe place for them at the moment.

Thanks! Hope the pic is clear enough.

 

[Eric Boerner]

Yes they will grown like weeds, up to the point that they hit the sand. They need substrate to attach too.

As far as color morphs go, you look like you have pretty common wild zoanthids. Crank up the actinics and get some close-ups of the disk if you want designer names tossed your way.

 

[santanzchild]

Names dont really matter just wanted to make sure none of them where going to kill anything. Do I need to mount them on the lower rocks or are they fine in the sand for a few weeks while I see if they live?

 

[Eric Boerner]

The very far ones on the right side, bottom one and 2nd from right on top are palythoa. You don't need to worry about hurting anything in the tank, but you'll want to be extra careful handing those two if you remount them or frag em later. Slightly more toxic than the rest of your gang there.

On placement. Personally, I like to mount my zoo's on rubble rock so it encrusts on my live rock with a more natural look. If you keep them on the disks, you'll notice the disk's shape after they start forming a new mat. Ideally, you'll want to place them at the base of your live rock and give them decent light.

 

[organism]

They're fine on the sand so no worries there, that's the best place to acclimate them so good choice on that one The other thing is you want to make sure they're getting some water movement since they can slime up and get infections pretty easily from shipping so you want to make sure you're not letting them sit in little to no flow.

You can keep them on the sand long-term and they'll be fine, or you can experiment with slowly moving them higher if you'd like them elsewhere. Chances are some of them are going to be ok with it and some of them might just need to stay on or near the sandbed depending on the color of your lighting. Which T5 and MH bulbs are you using out of curiosity?

 

[santanzchild]

Have 4 of these for my actinics ATI 60 Inch 80W True Actinic 03 T5HO Fluorescent Bulb.

And 3 of these as my MH's 250 W watt HQI 14000K Fc2.

For the most part they where what was cheap on amazon when I was buying a set of bulbs. If they are going to be in adequate I am all ears when it comes to proper lighting.
I do my best to do research on proper equipment before I spend money but lighting has always been a sure this looks good enough thing...

As for flow its a 6ft tank with a Jabeo WP40 mounted on the side in the top 1/3 of the tank and aiming straight to the other wall they are getting hit about mid tank after bouncing off the wall. There not getting the crap knocked out of them but there is a little bit of sway on they edges of the polyps. Its enough where when I add food it usually does two or three laps without touching the sand when I feed.

 

[santanzchild]

The very far ones on the right side, bottom one and 2nd from right on top are palythoa. You don't need to worry about hurting anything in the tank, but you'll want to be extra careful handing those two if you remount them or frag em later. Slightly more toxic than the rest of your gang there.

On placement. Personally, I like to mount my zoo's on rubble rock so it encrusts on my live rock with a more natural look. If you keep them on the disks, you'll notice the disk's shape after they start forming a new mat. Ideally, you'll want to place them at the base of your live rock and give them decent light.

If I remount them to the rocks do I just want to snip the polyps off at there base and glue them on with some coral glue or would I be better off scraping the glue that is holding it to the frag plug up and re-gluing that?

 

[terrypercula]

They look like nice healthy healed frags. They should do well.

 

[Reef Bass]

+1 for nice looking frags.

If I remount them to the rocks do I just want to snip the polyps off at there base and glue them on with some coral glue or would I be better off scraping the glue that is holding it to the frag plug up and re-gluing that?

If you haven't read up on palytoxin in the stickies, this would be a good time to do so. Your comfort with that topic may determine your approach. Whether the frag contains palytoxin or not, you don't want to be snipping polyps themselves. Always cut the tissue mat between polyps.

As far as glue goes, it doesn't have to be "coral glue". Any gel cyano acrylate ("super glue") will work fine. Definitely get the gel though and not the regular (it's too runny).

Personally, I don't have much luck trying to remove encrusted polyps off substrate without damaging them. Freshly mounted frags are easier because it is possible to get a razor or exacto blade between the glue and the frag plug (not between the polyp and the glue!) and pop the glue wad with polyps off the plug.

You could instead move the existing frag plug over next to the base of any rock you wish to be polyp covered and over time they will spread up the rock. Then you can cut the mat between polyps to remove the original plug from the bottom if you so desire.

Another way would be to cut the stem of the frag plug off and mount the now flatter and easier to position plug top with polyps somewhere. I do that with other corals all the time.

My preference is to have my family Zoanthidae polyps spread across the sand. Then I can pick up the clump and cut off sections containing multiple polyps by cutting the mat between polyps.

 

[Eric Boerner]

My preference is to have my family Zoanthidae polyps spread across the sand. Then I can pick up the clump and cut off sections containing multiple polyps by cutting the mat between polyps.

Reef Bass has all good tips there. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Invest in a good stainless steel exacto knife or surgical knife. That'll be your go to for working with these guys. Like Reef Bass noted, its best to pry the foot of the matting off the plug it's on. If you can get it off cleanly, use a liberal amount of thick gel super glue to re-attach it to the substrate you want it on permanently. Also like Reef Bass noted, I also prefer to mount directly to rock. I tend to use low profile rocks around 4" in diameter per colony. When your polyp colony completely mats over the rock, it will make it easier for you to frag off excess polyps by trimming around the edges. Try not to damage (or glue) the actual polyp.

 

[santanzchild]

Ya I bought the reef glue before I found out that some superglues will work. Figure I will just use the reef glue anyway since I already bought it. I do have a 12pk of superglue now for once it runs out.

As for the toxins some of them have that was the main reason I was asking how people remounted them. Dont want some nasties leaching off in my system.

 

[organism]

Ya I bought the reef glue before I found out that some superglues will work. Figure I will just use the reef glue anyway since I already bought it. I do have a 12pk of superglue now for once it runs out.

As for the toxins some of them have that was the main reason I was asking how people remounted them. Dont want some nasties leaching off in my system.

The ones that are already growing on rocks where only the rock is glued to the frag plug but no zoas are growing on it, those you can just take the rock off the plug entirely and glue down wherever you'd like since you're not harming the zoanthids any.

If they're already growing on the plug though, then your best bet is to just break the cylindrical part off the bottom of the plug since that's just for keeping them on a frag rack which you don't need, and then glue the disc wherever you'd like.

 

[santanzchild]

Sounds like a plan.