Zoanthid Magic????

[txmaverickmh]

Whats up everyone,

I have engrossed myself into a new obsession of collecting zoas, I have been buying up frags and attaching them to pieces of live rock and have seen some success in their growth.

I have a 40gal cube, with 150W MH with 2 T5s, 20 gal sump with skimmer, weekly water changes of 5 gals, water paremeters are fine...

What are some other things that I can do to enhance their growth? Any special recipes? I occasionally dose the tank with DT's phytoplankton and Reef Nutrition's Phyto Feast and Arcti-Pods, outside of normal feeding of the fish, but is there anything else that you experts do? I target feed my Acans on occasion, do people target feed zoas?

I would love to hear all of your advice, I am currently searching for some high-end zoas to purchase for my tank.

Thanks in advance!

Michael

 

[lbaldrey]

Apart from good husbandry and water parameters...

stop moving them around. That alone has cause my zoanthids to spread more faster than ones that i keep moving around or ones that fall off the rocks...that being said...secure your zoas well during placement.

 

[shroom101]

+1 on not moving them around

 

[nvdiz]

target feeding is unnecessary

 

[txmaverickmh]

thanks guys for the advice so far, I have been guilty at times trying to move frags around my tank to see if they like the flow, light better

 

[StillerNat]

i feed my tank with mysis and cyclops and then 3x a week i squirt in some oyster eggs. zoas seem to like a dirty tank. so i heavy feed my fish, but not to the point of raising parameters or bad algae growth.

 

[TiTAN]

+1 on the moving, they do not like that, let them settle in and they will start to spread.

 

[lbaldrey]

On the subject of moving...another coral that hates being moved : Blastomussa!

Had one for 2 years that would fall or i would move cause it was looking like falling..it stayed at 4 polyps...i eventually epoxied it and in 6 months i had 8 polyps...

 

[ddwbeagles]

A lot of opinions out there on target feeding ZOAs. I'll say this. I have way better luck with my Paly's than feeding ZOAs. Palys are almost like venus fly catchers, so to speak. They quickly close upon contact with food particles. Zoas on the other hand....I have to actually rub the feeding tip on their skirt to get them to close and thus bring the food (cyclopease) to their mouths. Anyway, I'm rambling now, but can see quick results (color-up) on the Palys and am not sure how much if any the ZOAs are actually eating. If it was a fishless tank, things would be much easier, but anything that doesn't get covered up in a few seconds, will get picked off by the fish.

 

[FragFarm]

Do zoas like dirty water as stated above?

 

[650-IS350]

Zoanthids/plays like " NUTRIENT RICH " water.... Dirty doesn't mean nutrient.