Coloring up Zoas (purple monster)

[Reef man 89]

My purple monster Zoa have never looked liked that mine are more dull in color. I am using leds and have nitrate at 10ppm and po4 at 0.02. The purple is a light purple. they are also on a Little Rock on the sand bed.

 

[littlebigreef]

Often times google images and/or vendor pages are going to give you the most idealized image of a strain taken with the best camera. I sort of take it for granted that short of picture manipulation what's in the tank will seldom look as nice as pictures online. That being said, there's a lot of good comments in this thread.

 

[Chickenfrog]

Often times google images and/or vendor pages are going to give you the most idealized image of a strain taken with the best camera. I sort of take it for granted that short of picture manipulation what's in the tank will seldom look as nice as pictures online. That being said, there's a lot of good comments in this thread.

Have you been able to get your zoas or coral in general to reflect the images seen from online retailers? Just asking if it is possible or am I chasing something that will not happen? Thank you for your response by the way.

 

[littlebigreef]

I post a lot of pictures on Instagram and all are taken with my phone camera (and often an orange gel filter). In my experience the pics on IG tend to be better representations of what you can hope for something to look like (barring aggressive or heavy-handed editing which is pretty obvious). I don't want to dissuade you from trying to make your zoas as happy as possible and they certainly are able to color up or down. But, I feel like some of those images are put out there by retailers to bait people and build up hype.

 

[Chickenfrog]

I post a lot of pictures on Instagram and all are taken with my phone camera (and often an orange gel filter). In my experience the pics on IG tend to be better representations of what you can hope for something to look like (barring aggressive or heavy-handed editing which is pretty obvious). I don't want to dissuade you from trying to make your zoas as happy as possible and they certainly are able to color up or down. But, I feel like some of those images are put out there by retailers to bait people and build up hype.

Sounds about right lol.

 

[Acuario]

You were asking about WWC levels in this thread. Here are several vendors' published numbers I've put into a spreadsheet. In my own experience, removing the skimmer produced thriving corals. The sps are happy and too many zoas, with PO4 usually .06 ppm and Nitrates around 10 ppm.

 

[Chickenfrog]

Thanks for the spread sheet. What do you think are the repercussions or turning off skimmer?

 

[Bugsy_Barboza]

I’ve noticed lately my zoas look great under just blues when whites cut on they close up. But they love the blue light..... has me wonder if I need to turn my intensity down for the whites. It’s only 40% on a 120gallon about 8 in off water.

 

[Acuario]

Repercussions with no skimmer, in my experience you have to live with a bit of algae. Use a felt sock on sump to avoid extra detritus in sump bottom. Before, I was dosing NeoPhos and NeoNitro, now I don't need to.

 

[Chickenfrog]

Repercussions with no skimmer, in my experience you have to live with a bit of algae. Use a felt sock on sump to avoid extra detritus in sump bottom. Before, I was dosing NeoPhos and NeoNitro, now I don't need to.

So if I decide to stop running my skimmer, what would be the time window of seeing the effects on the coral? And what should I be on the lookout for (adverse effects)?

 

[Acuario]

If low nutrients are the only issue, then changing to no skimming or skimming for a few hours per day will cause nutrients to rise. Test for phosphates daily, perhaps nitrates too, until things settle out. If you get above about .1 ppm on the phosphates be prepared to do some small water changes or the algae will come in strong. Many suggest no more than .03 ppm phosphates. A good clean-up crew is important too. Your zoas should be happy with almost any detectable phosphate and nitrate. I would imagine in a few days you'll see some difference.

 

[Subsea]

So if I decide to stop running my skimmer, what would be the time window of seeing the effects on the coral? And what should I be on the lookout for (adverse effects)?

No one can give you a definitive time to see improvement. Only bad things happen fast. Keep up with testing nitrates & phosphates.

The most important thing to watch for is low oxygen during lights out. I have been skimmerless for
> 30yrs. All of my tanks are designed around robust gas exchange.

 

[Chickenfrog]

No one can give you a definitive time to see improvement. Only bad things happen fast. Keep up with testing nitrates & phosphates.

The most important thing to watch for is low oxygen during lights out. I have been skimmerless for
> 30yrs. All of my tanks are designed around robust gas exchange.

Thanks for the input. What are you doing for gas exchange? Would a powerhead pointed slightly up agitating the surface, work?

 

[Subsea]

Thanks for the input. What are you doing for gas exchange? Would a powerhead pointed slightly up agitating the surface, work?

Aggressive circulation at the water surface for my sumpless tanks works well. On my tanks with refugium, I allow air to be drawn into drain line. Yes, it makes noise, but it provides good gas exchange. I also provide the equivalent of a wet dry filter to maximize splashing in first chamber of refugium. If you have a macro refugium, maximize your light intensity on opposite light cycle as display tank. This will consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen for display tank.

 

[Chickenfrog]

Aggressive circulation at the water surface for my sumpless tanks work well. On my tanks with refugium, I allow air to be drawn into drain line. Yes, it makes noise, but it provides good gas exchange. I also provide the equivalent of a wet dry filter to maximize splashing in first chamber of refugium. If you have a macro refugium, maximyour light intensity on opposite light cycle as display tank. This will consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Okay that sounds good. Thanks for the options I'm gonna do one and see how it affects my coral and then try another. So that I can determine what works best for my tank.

 

[bigdrew]

Just curious @Chickenfrog how this ended up turning out? I just bought some. Haven’t come in the mail yet, but this forum will be helpful. Thanks!

 

[blasterman]

The original picture posted of purple monsters look great to me. Not sure what the OP was complaining about.

I have about a hundred heads of the things in my tank and they've reached the ends of the rock they are on and cant grow further. Too lazy to frag them. They are as common as weeds in my area.

The tank they are in has two entirely different LED fixtures on it. They look radically different under each light source so the issue here is lighting.

 

[Brian1f1]

The color of mine has been great. They went from two polyps to dozens in a year. During that time they thinned out, then came back, but have since really thinned out again, and have left some rock they occupied empty. I don’t understand them...

 

[boeingn747]

That's interesting. I'm curious if WWC have detectable nitrates? If they do, how are the keeping them steady and consistent? Along with controlling algae? Now I'm gonna have to look into this. Thank you btw

When I received my last order from WWC I checked the nitrates with the api kit and the salifert kit and I got oround 30 with the api and I'd say between 10 and 25 on the salifert. So I'd guess their keeping nitrates around 15-20 realistically. I have over 25 different zoa types with 18 of them being of a ultra grade variety and 5 of them being high quality and 2 standard variety green and a purple. I run only blue lights for the last 5hrs of the 12 hr cycle. I feel like that gives my corals plenty of time hitting all spectrums and then the blue helps bring out the best color for zoas IMO. Also, please be aware that any wwc frags are using a standard photo for representation and it was taken with a lense filter and specific lighting to bring out the colors. I would say that 90% of my zoa colors looks like the picture on their website at any given time and all but 3 or 4 varieties are ID able by looking at them. A couple of them have changed slightly from what they looked like on the website.

 

[Eddy Sosa]

In my experience, having nutrients a little high and leaving them very saturated royal blue leds, more zooxanthellae are generated and this generates more vibrant colors, on the other hand, I have noticed that the more light in my case hqi they grow very fast but the zoas become small