Zoa & Paly Food?

[NYfishies]

Hi all,

 

I have a tank which is dedicated to Zoa's and Paly's only. At the moment I have added about 35 frags to the tank. Please see below link for the tank. There is also a Frag Tank tied into the system which we hope to grow/propagate the coral from the DT.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/354579-custom-10g-dt-3g-ft-7g-s-zoapaly-garden/

 

It is my understand that Zoa's and Paly's prefer "dirty" water. This tank has no skimmer, but only a filter sock and a carbon/gfo reactor. I do weekly 20% water changes. At the moment there are no fish in the tank (only 5 Sexy Shrimp and 2 Pom Pom Crabs which I feed pellets a few times a week) so no poop for the water/coral to enjoy.

 

From what I have researched the below seem to be the best options. I am looking for any and all advice you guys may have on the care of these amazing corals. I hope to have a "garden" of them all side by side in this tank and have seen a lot of your guys tanks where it has been achieved!

1. Frozen Mysis/Brine Shrimp: In my larger tank I have been feeding these to my fish forever. I sometimes target feed to my Beatdown Paly as those polyps are large enough to grab and eat the shrimp. It grows very well, but not sure if it is directly related to the shrimp feeding. For smaller polpys and most Zoa's the shrimp are too large and they don't seem to close up on them.
2. Fauna Marin Ultra Ricordea & Zoanthus: I have never used these pellets, but read very good things. They are hard to find online (Premium Aquatics is like the only place to buy). Does any have experience or currently use? Where do you buy from?
3. Coral Frenzy: Again, I have not used, but read relatively good things. Can be bought on Amazon so free shipping is nice. Does any have experience or currently use?

Thanks for any advice you have!

[Mkus]

They do well with a liquid food oyster feast I use red sea two part food works well too..

[Sunstar]

Mkus, how do you go about feeding these little beasties. pipette? filters off?

[Mkus]

Yes filter off and in tank korilia left on do not over feed. I feed once every other day or you will have algae fest..

[NYfishies]

Yes filter off and in tank korilia left on do not over feed. I feed once every other day or you will have algae fest..

 

Target feed or broadcast?

 

Also, you use both Oyster Feast and the 2 Part Red Sea?

[Mkus]

I just broadcast

I just use Red Sea my friend has a 75 gallon reef he uses both oyster and Red Sea I only use Red Sea because my tank is so small..

[NYfishies]

I just broadcast

I just use Red Sea my friend has a 75 gallon reef he uses both oyster and Red Sea I only use Red Sea because my tank is so small..

 

So for your small tank (mine is only a 20g total system) you have found broadcast feeder the 2 part Red Sea as the best results for your Zoa's? Do you have a Skimmer?

 

Anybody else have any experience with anything else?

[12_egg_Omelette]

Aqua vitro fuel

[NYfishies]

Aqua vitro fuel

 

I used that before on my larger tank and have since switched to Acropower due to suggestions of some fellow reefers. Do you target feed or broadcast? I just started yesterday mixing the Acropower liguid into the salt water / shrimp mix I feed with. Trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

[12_egg_Omelette]

I broadcast it. I don't need much at all for my 12 gallon. I'm seeking great results in zoa and paly color. Sps look vivid great PE.

 

I also feed cyclopeeze too though and I target feed my nps sun coral that then let the rest drift to everything else.

[jojoe972]

Heard great things about BRS's reef chilli.

 

Haven't tried yet but I just ordered some.

[NYfishies]

Heard great things about BRS's reef chilli.

 

Haven't tried yet but I just ordered some.

 

I have that in my cart at BRS as we speak. Think I will also give it a try. So many good reviews..

[ml86743]

REEEEEEEEF ROIDSSSS!

[NYfishies]

REEEEEEEEF ROIDSSSS!

 

Broadcast or target? How often? And do you run a skimmer?

[ml86743]

 

Broadcast or target? How often? And do you run a skimmer?

I target feed and yes a run a skimmer. I usually feed all my coral once a week with that stuff. My goni I feed 3-5 times a week.

[12_egg_Omelette]

I can't remember what vendor it is here that sells coral but they posted they also give their Zoas Aqua vitro fuel.

[PathOfDeception]

I target feed and yes a run a skimmer. I usually feed all my coral once a week with that stuff. My goni I feed 3-5 times a week.

Yea I started reef roids last week, the next day my corals all looked like they were on "roids"

haha

[NYfishies]

Thanks everybody for your input. Very helpful.

 

For our IM Fusion 40 I will continue to feed the fish Pellets in the morning and the fish/coral Mysis Shrimp at night. I find that our goniopora, acans, and Beatdown paly really enjoy them. Forget about the Duncans - they would eat a pound of Mysis if we had it.

 

For our smaller 20G system which will house only Zoas & Palys I am going to try a combo. I have been researching more and more and it seems that some people are mixing Polyp Labs Reef-Roids with BRS Reef Chili. I am going to do a combo of those 2 (will need to determine the amounts to use of each) together with Mysis Shrimp. At some point when we add the 2 fish we plan to add I will add Pellets to the equation.

 

Putting the order in now so will let you guys know how it goes in a week or 2!

[jojoe972]

good luck and let us know what you see

[NYfishies]

Hi all,

 

So I have been feeding my tanks now for the past 2 weeks a combo of foods. I mix AcroPower, Reef Roids and BRS Reef Chili together with tank water and target feed every polyp using Julian's Thing (which works wonders).

 

I added the AcroPower to the mix for the amino acids. I have been using this stuff for awhile in my larger tank and I really think it helps.

 

There is clearly a benefit. Most of the 39 Zoa's/Paly's we have in our smaller tank close up pretty much immediately upon receiving the mix. They beef up then which tells me they are consuming. It is interesting to see how they eat - some close inwards so you cannot see any of the colors and some outwards where you see all of the colors. Within the hour most are fully opened again and look very happy. The colors pop for sure. I now see colors in some of the polyps that I did not see before (for instance my Jokers have become much deeper in purple hue).

 

After I feed I look around each frag to check for growth. Pretty darn exciting to see some of my more expensive popping out new heads already! I cannot tie this great growth on over half of the frags directly to the food mix, but I do think it is helping to push things along. PE also seems great on most of the frags.

 

At this point I look forward to continuing this feeding pattern (everyother day). Yes, it promotes algae growth. This week my man John at reefcleaners.org hooked me up with a nice CUC. I went over the top to combat the growth as I do plan to continue to overfeed the tank. Weekly water changes are an absolute must with this practice.

 

Hope you guys find this helpful! I will keep you up to date.

[Legendary Corals]

We mix almost every food you can think of into our coral food. We soak it with Reef Fuel and keep it fridged. It makes a type of slurpy for our LPS to chow down on.

 

I've spot fed zoas plenty of time. Some of them respond to pellets and even meaty foods such as mysis. But then again if you think about zoas, they are really small and most particle sizes are too large for them to in take. And in the wild it would be really rare for them to be able to chow down on solid particles.

 

We talked to a lot of friends who grow zoas really well and a good hand full of them say that Rod's Food is a main reason why they get such big polyps and fast growth. But it doesn't make sense as to why fish food would correlate to zoa growth, as the particles are freaking HUGE!

 

But there is something that we all know corals do use... and that's fish poop!!! So maybe it's not the Rod's Food that makes them grow, it's the quality of the fish poop (as odd as that sounds). So we kept all of our parameters, lighting, flow, etc the same and decided to make our own fish food. We used fresh ingredients such as fresh tilapia, scallops, mussels, clams, oysters, shrimp, our coral food mix (at least 5 different products in the coral food), bloodworms, fish roe, spirulina, seaweed, etc... The list is super long and it was basically everything we could think of. Just blended and fed to fish as frozen food.

 

We saw results in only a week! Polyps grew much larger and at a faster rate than before. All of our corals grew at steady rates and even out 3p Hallucinations turned into 8 in about a month.

[NYfishies]

Hey Darwin,

 

Awesome info - really appreciate it! I have also read that fish poop is key. We added 3 fish to the tank last week and plan to add 1 more within the month. It is a small setup (10G DT, 3G FT, 7G Sump) and I think 4 fish will produce some good poop for the corals.

 

I really like the idea of soaking the food and keeping it in the fridge. That would also certainly cut down on mixing time and the smell of the open containers.

 

I feed the tank once a day with Mysis for the fish. Some of the corals love them too. The Pink Pixies always snatch at least 1 or 2 and it takes them forever to eat.

 

I have not heard of Rod's Food, but now I want to check it out! I would feed my fish with it rather than add it to the coral mix as the coral mix is made up of tiny particle that the polyps can eat.

 

FYI my LC Hyper Phoenix has gone from 1P on 4/10/15 to growing 2 new heads as of today.

[natalia_la_loca]

In my experience, fish poop is not essential. I'm getting very good zoa growth in a fishless system. But I compensate with daily target feeding. I also have a peppermint shrimp who gets daily feedings of mysis, maybe shrimp poop is good too? I don't know.

 

As you've observed, it's challenging to feed enough to get good growth while keeping nuisance algae away. I use a skimmer, run carbon (changed 2x/month) and do a large weekly water change, this works well. I've found with zoas that it's better to do more nutrient export than to bring in a big CUC...lots of inverts moving around can annoy them. Right now the CUC in my 8 gallon consists of one trochus snail. Now and then I bring in a turbo from my bigger tank to take care of little patches of hair algae that pop up.

 

Try Rods Food Coral Blend for target feeding zoas. Much smaller particle size than regular Rods Food (although even regular Rods Food has particle sizes that zoas like). I target feed this daily, a very small amount.

 

I use Fauna Marin Ultra Ricordea and Zoanthus once a week and am getting good results. The instructions say it should be mixed with Ultra Min D, a liquid sold separately. Anecdotes from Tidal Gardens suggest that zoas respond better to the two together than to URZ powder alone. I ordered both from Bulk Reef Supply. It is crazy expensive, but given how little is needed to feed zoas, a bottle of each should last a long time. I use some of it to feed my bigger tank (my damselfish eat it like popcorn), and even with that it will take me at least a year to use it up.

[NYfishies]

In my experience, fish poop is not essential. I'm getting very good zoa growth in a fishless system. But I compensate with daily target feeding. I also have a peppermint shrimp who gets daily feedings of mysis, maybe shrimp poop is good too? I don't know.

 

As you've observed, it's challenging to feed enough to get good growth while keeping nuisance algae away. I use a skimmer, run carbon (changed 2x/month) and do a large weekly water change, this works well. I've found with zoas that it's better to do more nutrient export than to bring in a big CUC...lots of inverts moving around can annoy them. Right now the CUC in my 8 gallon consists of one trochus snail. Now and then I bring in a turbo from my bigger tank to take care of little patches of hair algae that pop up.

 

Try Rods Food Coral Blend for target feeding zoas. Much smaller particle size than regular Rods Food (although even regular Rods Food has particle sizes that zoas like). I target feed this daily, a very small amount.

 

I use Fauna Marin Ultra Ricordea and Zoanthus once a week and am getting good results. The instructions say it should be mixed with Ultra Min D, a liquid sold separately. Anecdotes from Tidal Gardens suggest that zoas respond better to the two together than to URZ powder alone. I ordered both from Bulk Reef Supply. It is crazy expensive, but given how little is needed to feed zoas, a bottle of each should last a long time. I use some of it to feed my bigger tank (my damselfish eat it like popcorn), and even with that it will take me at least a year to use it up.

 

Maybe just poop in general is good?

 

I hear you on the CUC disrupting the corals and I am sure as my frags turn into colonies that I will find myself removing the CUC and shifting them to my bigger tank. Need to find that balance of feeding to algae growth.

 

We grow some serious Chaeto in our fuge chamber in the sump for some good nutrient export. I do 20-25% water changes weekly. No skimmer, but I do use the BRS mini reactor with GFO/Carbon. The media is changed every other water change.

 

Thanks for the input! Hopefully we will together find a perfect mix.

[natalia_la_loca]

yup, I think poop in general is good chaeto will be great for nutrient export. I look forward to seeing what mix of feeding and maintenance works for you.