Meaning if I make a post that says I dont like my colors... I get "its because you are running a ULNS" If I say I have poor growth I get people saying "well its because you run a ULNS" even though I can point out many ULN systems with good growth and color...
That being said, I am no longer running pellets, I have doubles the amount of fish. Since one of them is a large anthias I now feed 3 times a day instead of two. My NO4 and PO4 are still at zero.... I have not seen any real improvement in growth in over a year... two sps colonies grow like weeds. My GSP does well also... The rest do not much of anything... My zoas are the slowest... I have fragged small pieces so I can place them in different parts of the tank in different PAR levels and the speed is pretty much the same...
Please tell me that you don't want your PO4 and NO4 high!!!
The only pellets I would recommend are the coral food pellets (target feeding). :dance:
My zoas grow pretty slow for what I want. They do grow faster when I target feed them, but still slow for what I want. I think the growth speed could be considered relative from person to person too. It depends what he/she see as " fast" or "slow". I don't worry much about their growth/reproduction rates today. I just do what I can and enjoy the tank and keep them healthy. The top part od my system is where the grow faster, close to the lights.
Some times I have also some bacterial infections (driving me crazy!!!) here and there and in some cases I've lost entire colonies for those infections. Those colonies took like 2 years to grow!!! Very sad!! They do come back and grow on the rocks again when I can manage to save some of the polyps, so...
I understand now what you mean about the ULNS. I have phosphates and nitrates around zero most times, but those aren't the only nutrients we've got!!! I think people get confused when they post those statements you've mentioned... There are many types of "ULNS" nowadays, I guess.
I know all zoanthids need nutrients, they also absorb some from the water besides the zooxanthellae source. I just have to believe they get nutrients from food particles too, once they grow a bit faster and some species manifest their colors better.
When there are extra nutrients for the algae in the water, they are used by the zooxanthellae, giving the darker color to corals/zoas (probably because of the number of zooxanthellae into the tissue) and not necessarily related to the colors we really want. There is so much to colors and growth!!! I mean, the pale appearance is a lack of zooxanthellae in those low, low nutrient systems as we know, if that's what people are talking about. Yes, in that case it could be a lack of NO4, PO4, generally speaking.
Target feeding will help with some of the colors/growth, depending on the coral food used and the way you feed. The special nutrition for color and growth will be going inside the polyps with target feeding. The bigger mistake is the excess of food into the system what brings problems with algae and cyanos, for example. Liquid invert foods are the worse IME. Broadcast feeding just gives us more work to clean the system with water changes, even with the the help of a good skimmer. Even good target feeding needs to be controlled. I feed only about once a week.
PAR levels aren't ALL what light is about, as we know. There is spectrum, intensity, etc... Spectrum is very important for zoas!!! There is the chemistry, temp, alk, pH too and so on...
Balance of nutrients and stability are the best you can offer in a zoa system.
Hope that helps a bit.
Grandis.
That happens with all of the zoanthids I've got. They do behave differently while feeding, but they all feed upon and will manifest better reproduction/growth rates. Try not to squirt on them because they'll just react against it and they'll close before the food touches them.
