The Zoanthid Secret

[lgreen]

So I am about ready to spend a crap load of money to make a small propogation system to attach to my main tank.

 

I guess what I am wondering, if there where no money limits, what would be the ultimate system for specifically growing zoanthids?

 

Lighting?

 

I am assuming metal halide...any other opinions?

 

Food?

 

Any special foods?

 

Waterflow?

 

Surgedevice, wavemaker or powerheads

 

How deep of a tank?

 

I was thinking like 6 inches and then plastic light cover stuff

 

Supplements?

 

Any

 

What in your guy's experience has given you the most success with zoas?

 

 

Any opinions or experiences would be great. Thanks!

[ifynanceu]

I feed mine directly with a turkey baster and vary the foods from Cyclopeeze (the frozen paste type), Liquid Life's Coral Plankton, and DT's Phyto...My ZO's grow out of control...I have them at the bottom of my 50t tank which is 27" tall and am using a Hamilton Reefstart Pendant system w/250w HQI Bulb 14k and the standard ballast...Hope this helps...

[cornstar]

I have found good lighting (MH) and trace elements help mine grow. Water flow is not a major concern, either is feeding them directly, the only food mine get is some marine snow twice a week.

 

Hope this helps.

[lgreen]

very very helpfull

 

I have been wanting to try cyclopeeze.

 

Do you just put it on their mouth, and then the tenticals close up and take it or is there some other trick?

 

thank you!

[lgreen]

i'm starting to think maybe it is just the metal halides which are the trick to getting coral in genral to grow.

 

Thanks!

[lgreen]

how about do you guys have any tips for getting good growth on frogspawns, torches, and hammers? or LPS in general?

 

thanks

[yoshiod9]

good lighting + good water quality + decent flow = happy, fast growing corals.

[Tigahboy]

a lot of LPS don't need mh and actually seem to thrive better w/o them. zoo's definitely reach their optimal colors under mh's tho. so you may have to pick and choose which you would like in your prop tank.

 

i'm setting up a prop tank w/ just PC's soon. =)

[yoshiod9]

duh...tigah made me realize that i'm an idiot. when dealing with most lps, it's actually ok to have a 'dirty' tank. the water doesn't have to be pristine like with sps. if you forget to do your weekly wc...no worries, get it next time. my eclipse6 is my lps tank and that thing gets a wc maybe once every month or so. lol. 32w of pc and things grow like crazy.

[Tigahboy]

yeah man. since I got rid of most of my sps (and now I have zero sps), i've been kickin back a lil. haha. not as diligent about dosing and testing for calc and alk. thank god. =)

[Tomaso_Pantera]

Actualy the BEST lighting for zoa' colonies isnt MH. It is PC or VHO.

MH will fade them. Just remebr a good skimmer and plenty of current and your set. Also it is a good Idea to dose a little Iodine and maybe some growth stimulant like amino's. ( along with the usual like mysis for paly's to feed on,blah blah..)

[cornstar]

Fade them? I have found that a MH is required for many corals in order to maintain their colour.

 

Igreen,

 

I would not bother feeding zoas directly. One of the secrets to frogspawns, and other LPS, is again MH and optimal calcium and KH to ensure skeletal growth.

[lgreen]

hmm...so we have a vote for MH, a vote for vho, and a vote for PC

 

what is the happy medium? T5's?

 

I actually was thinking about putting a 150w HQI MH on my 12gallon and then putting like 4 T5's on the prop tank. (I could put more or less, what do you think?

 

Do you guys think that would work good?

[B16A2NR]

Like yoshiod basicly said Zoo's thrive in nutrient rich tanks. Meaning a heavy dosing of planktons and a heavy bioload. It is debatable weather zoo's can physically take in and digest food, I have only personally witnessed palythoa closing up on visable planktons. Zoo's almost completely feed off lighting, absorbing their nutrients from the water current, and from the rock they are attached to. It wouldn't hurt to add planktons because they will be broken down into disolved organic matter that they can absorb anyways.

 

Indeed it is true zoos can and are propagated using PC's, T5's, and flos. But I have personally witnessed the most rapid growth rate under metal halide in my 3.5 gallon. A colony of green zoo's literally doubled in polyp count after 4 months.

 

On another note I witnessed more rapid growth under higher temps. I keep all my tanks at 81-82. Every animal has a metabolic rate, the hotter the environment the faster the growth.

[lgreen]

Thank you B162NR

 

Do you have an opinion on a good setup for the LPS corals?

 

maybe i will just do two prop tanks !!

 

Any all you other guys, what lights then for the LPS--the pc's, or t5's or MH?

 

thank you all for so much info!

[lgreen]

i have seen a tank in which LPS did really awesome with t5's, so i was thinking about using those for the LPS prop tank

 

what do you all think?

[oogie]

Originally posted by Tomaso_Pantera

Actualy the BEST lighting for zoa' colonies isnt MH. It is PC or VHO.

MH will fade them. Just remebr a good skimmer and plenty of current and your set. Also it is a good Idea to dose a little Iodine and maybe some growth stimulant like amino's. ( along with the usual like mysis for paly's to feed on,blah blah..)

 

Actualy, if you are only going to keep zoos, then skimmer is NOT needed at all. Also, medium flow would be the best. I have both zoo tank and sps tank and they are like night and day apart. Like someone mentioned earlier, zoos like high nutrient water. So if you get a skimmer that is constantly skimming, then zoo won't thrive as much. I had to learn this hard way of trying to keep both zoo and sps. When SPS is doing well, zoos suffured and vice versa.

 

Also, for the lighting, I agree MH is best choice. It brings out color well. Only thing you have to worry is some of zoos actually don't like too much lighting. Make sure you identfy them and and put them under a shaded area. But overall I find MH giving best color to the zoos. If your goal is to harvest zoos then 10K will do fine but if you want them to look nicer, either supplement MH with VHO/T5 aticnics or get 14K/20K bulb. I think PC aticnics stink!

 

Hope this helps.

[B16A2NR]

I have gone through a few different styles of propagation systems that have their drawbacks. The absolute most cost efficient propagation setup for softies, shrooms, and zoos is a 50 gallon rubbermaid, or old used 50 gallon tank from a garage sale lit with 2 sets of dual florescent 36"-48" shop fixtures and just swap out the bulbs. Or run 6500k 19w curly Q PC bulbs that you can buy at HD for cheap also.

My first propagations system was a 20 gallon rubbermaid in a college dormroom. It is by far the cheapest and easiest setup to maintain. The biggest downside is if you sell corals locally customers only have a top view of the corals, which is difficult with reflecting light and high water flow.

My current system is 58 gallons, consisting of 2 20 longs, 15 gallon sump/fuge, and 3 gallon top-off system. 2 96w PC's, and 2 55w PC's You can see it in my gallery: http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/showphoto...&cat=500&page=1 Its an excellent display but did cost quite a bit more around $350 I can get more specs and photos if interested. The key is a shallow tank with a lot of surface area. The evaporation rate is very high about, almost a gallon a day in summer.

For LPS a 50 gallon rubbermaid with 2 96w PC's is more than efficient. I have seen 400w 10k and 20k complete kits sell on ebay for $120 shipped. Talk to SSmangrove, they are uber cheap for the wattage. Just know that wattage comes with a very high electricity bill that can put you in the negative on propagation profit.

[Withers]

Originally posted by Tomaso_Pantera

Actualy the BEST lighting for zoa' colonies isnt MH. It is PC or VHO.

MH will fade them. Just remebr a good skimmer and plenty of current and your set. Also it is a good Idea to dose a little Iodine and maybe some growth stimulant like amino's. ( along with the usual like mysis for paly's to feed on,blah blah..)

 

LOL, I had to double check to make sure that this post wasn't on April 1st. You post a pic of your zoanthids under PC's and then we'll post pics of ours under metal halides and we'll see who's look "faded".

 

After having zoanthids in a semi-clean tank with PC's over it, and then having the same zoanthids in a very clean tank with MH over it, they definitely do better under metal halides. They're like weeds! I'm pretty sure the nutrient poor environment hasn't affected them adversely, but I'm also pretty sure they don't care about the water quality at all.

[lgreen]

thanks vic i agree about the fading.

 

even just taking them home from the lfs, which had a 130 wt pc on a 55 gallon tank, to my tank which is 12g and currently has 80w, I noticed a huge color differnce.

[Tigahboy]

mh's for zoo's if u want some nice colors. period.

 

i'm setting up an LPS prop tank as well. going to go w/ either PC's or T5's. probably PC's tho.

 

what kinda LPS you planning on propagatin?

[BKtomodachi]

I have a big ole 6-bulb 4' T-5 lighting fixture that I bought from a closing-down lfs... it is sweet. I'm probably going to start a prop tank, I cant wait.

[DiverDave]

.02

 

MH lights tend to give off more UVA/UVB which can increase the UV protection pigments in corals; thus, an increase in color(just like us humans getting a sun tan).

Too much UVA,UVB, or PAR (photosynthetic available radiation) can cause the zooxanthellae to be expelled from its host coral (ie bleaching). And finally, different lights have different looks.

[KrackerG]

Originally posted by lgreen

hmm...so we have a vote for MH, a vote for vho, and a vote for PC

what is the happy medium? ...

 

i like both MH and PC, why not run both?!?

[lgreen]

BK--

 

you got one of those too! That was a freaking killer deal. I would have bought all of them if they had any left!!

 

Tigahboy

 

I would like to do frogspawns, hammers, and torches as far as the lps.

 

I also want to do zoo though too.

 

I might just set up two, do a MH on the zoo one, and t5's on the LPS one.

 

thanks