What are they telling me?

bguile

bguile

Premium Member
Here's some pics of my zoas. I'm rebuilding so these are the first back in my tank and they've been there for about two weeks now. At first they just opened without the extension. Now this is what some of them are doing. They are all in the same tank with the following parameters:
Salinity: 1.026
Amm: 0
Phos:0
Trates:~25
Temp: 78
A630-IMG_2816.jpg

A630-IMG_2818.jpg

A630-IMG_2819.jpg

A630-IMG_2820.jpg

A630-IMG_2822.jpg


What are they telling me? Could they be telling me they need more light so I should move them up?
 
they seem kinda closed nitrates seem alittle high maybe they dont like that maybe they need less light
 
+1 the zoas are reaching for more light, move them up in the tank and see how they do.
and try to keep your nitrates at 10ppm or under (mine are nomally around 5ppm)

what kind of lights areyou running and how old are the bulbs?
 
bekindtoyurbuds said:
+1 the zoas are reaching for more light, move them up in the tank and see how they do.
and try to keep your nitrates at 10ppm or under (mine are nomally around 5ppm)

what kind of lights areyou running and how old are the bulbs?
Click to expand...

I'll see about moving them up and see what happens. The bulb is a 14K Phoenix of which I cant remember how old since there's been a few swaps between bulbs, so maybe I'll start there and see what I can do about the nitrates although I never can seem to get them below 25ppm.
 
Well dude. if once a month isn't cutting it, how about doing every two weeks... Also, how much are you changing, %, in this once a month water change??? duh..
 
As for the pic you posted of the zoas 'reaching', How long have they been in that exact spot? Did you just receive them ? Did you just pull them out of an extremely shady spot ? If they lost some zooxanthellae, they will still reach even in bright light, until they rebuild that zooxanthellae algae. They look pretty dull and clear to me. I think that's your problem.

But seriously change your water changing to something more efficient. You don't want 25 ppm.
 
I'm pretty sure that's not the case as this system has been running since July 07. Thanks for your input though.
 
I moved them up tonight closer to the light and ordered a new set of bulbs so we'll see how they do. I'm also prepping ASW for a 25% water change.
 
Scott-CapeCoral said:
LOL, I'm actually trying to help you here, and you answer his statement about your tank not being mature.

I'm done, hahaha
Click to expand...

Somehow I didn't see your post. I must have too many active windows open. Lost some zooxanthella?? Please explain how you'd see that. Also, they have been in my DT in that same spot for about a 3 weeks now.
 
If you can't remeber when you changed the light, its probably about time to replace it, just to be safe, mark down the date you bought it and change it at least once a year, maybe even sooner depending what the tank tells you (ie: execess algae, corals doing poorly etc.)

I've noticed that you have some cyano in the pics above, so maybe adding more flow to the tank would help with you with the high nitrate problems (more water flow equals more suspended detrius in the water column, thus allowing the skimmer and filtration to remove more of it)
If you are running some sort of filter pad make sure you clean it often (evey couple days) and blow off the rocks to remove the excess junk laying on them every week or so.

Bump up your water changes to every two weeks, of at least 10%, (I do about 14% on my 34 gal every two weeks) You may even want to do higher % of water changes for the first month or so until you get your Nitrates to acceptable levels, make sure to scrub your cyano and then blow off all of the rocks before the water change so you can get more of the crap thats causing the high nitrates out with the water change.

Hope this helps, good luck
 
Thanks and all good suggestions everyone.

Right now I'm in the process of activating a lot, if not all of these suggestions. I've already moved the reaching zoas higher up and it seems they've stop extending as much toward the light but that was an assesment this am just after the lights came on so I'll know more later today. I've purchased a new set of bulbs that should arrive any day now which means I'll probably end up moving the zoas back down to avoid the new light shock. I'll start with a 25% water change this weekend.

I do keep mechanical sponge filters in my sump to be colonized for emergency QT or hospital tank purposes. They're rather small so I doubt they are large contributors but I will rinse them out as well.

As far as DT flow, I have two Koralia 4's installed blowing in opposite directions from the center of the tank. I was considering whether I should add one of the magnum models to one end blowing across the entire tank, or invest in a higher flow rated return pump as I don't think I'm even close to overflow capacity. I read an article a few days ago that stated your skimmer pump should be around the rate of your overflow so that all the water in the skimmer area of your sump goes through the skimmer and moved to another part of the sump as not to reprocess already skimmed water. My skimmer pump is rated at 1200gph and will run my skimmer section dry in a matter of minutes. So there may be a bit to do here......thank God Christmas is coming
 
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