Zoa becoming long and not compact...

[abhishek@1985]

Hi friends,

I got my first green zoa colony after setting my tank for 5 months..Well all the parameters are in range..
However, the zoa is sitting on the fine sand bed.
The tank is 12 inches high lit by a 70 W 6500K MH.I am getting a LED setup done in a couple of weeks.

Recently I am seeing that some of the polyps are becoming long .Is it because of the spectrum of the light or the lightintensity is too low.

The MH is placed 18 inches from the water surface..so the zoanthid is actually close to 28 inches from the MH ..

Is it the reason or is it low flow near the zoas?

 

[sirbiggstixx]

no prolly cuz that light is as close to the sun as you can get..its prolly just growing out its a$$..that bulbs gets the best growth but has that terrible yellow look..

when you get that led, i bet you will see it not grow as much, but i think your tank will look better as far as coloring..

 

[JeremiahChua]

Zoas growing longer "stalks" generally mean they're trying to reach for the light. Where are these longer looking polyps located? I have some blue tubs that are growing on a piece of rock. The ones that are on the surface of the rock are short and normal. As the colony grew, the zoas started spreading to the side of the rock and those polyps started growing longer stalks to reach the light.

Bottom line, it's probably light issue.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Thanks for the replies...well jeremiah u are right..
The ones with longer stalks are the ones which are growing on the sides or underneath the rocks...so I guess they are raching out for light..

Should I try and lower the MH to closer the water surface?

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

You can lower the halide down. 18" above the surface is pretty high. Most people have their halide 8-10" above the surface of the water. Mine's about 10". Lowering it may cause some heat issues though. I keep a clip on fan running when my halide is on.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Hmm..thanks a lot .Well have lowered down my mh to 12 inches from the water surface..
Wanted to know what precautions do you all take before introducing a new zoa? Like dipping it in freshwater or something else...

 

[bobbychullo]

i'm not sure, i would check the lighting forum but i think you should take your time and lower the light a little bit each day over a few days as not to shock or stress your corals (and fish if you have them) with too much light too soon. i am not 100% sure of this tho...

i havent been at this quite a year yet but when i get a new zoa or paly, i bag acclimate it for temp for 15 minutes. i then dip in a saltwater dip with Revive coral dip (there is also CoralRx which a lot of people like). just follow the directions on the bottle.

for revive i i put 4 capfuls into a gallon of fresh saltwater, let it mix for a bit.
i place the coral in there for 5-10 minutes. i will gently swish the coral around in the dip to agitate the water and shake and critters loose every minute or so. before i remove it i will take the coral by the base, turn it upside down in the dip and gently twist it from side to side in the dip for a final agitation.

before returning to the display, dip the coral in some fresh saltwater that has no dip solution in it to rinse off the coral. i dont think i have forgotten anything, you should do a search of this forum, there are tons of threads and articles about it.

most people say to start your corals on the bottom of your tank and slowly move them up over a few weeks.

everything in this hobby should be done slowly, patiently and not before you've done plenty of research.