Wow, thanks so much for putting in all of that effort! I really appreciate the help!
Thanks for the help and pics - I really appreciate it! And that's a lot of zoas!As someone who's done this there's a handful of considerations. First, I found it necessary to lift the colonies off the sand bed every 3-4 months or the nitrates and phosphates would start to creep up on me ie old tank syndrome. Admittedly I had a lot of fish in that system. Second, nassarius snails, conchs, etc will disturb stuff even after colonies get above a certain size. This includes shifting the colony, creating trails in the substrate so a side might dip, and re-depositing sand onto your grow out disc. This isn't an issue for most strains but you want to keep an eye so that you don't have substrate (and detritus) getting caught between the polyps (no quicker way to burn out a colony). Thirdly, some z's and p's (specifically the bigger ones) will grow right off the disc and into substrate. On other's its just never gonna happen, but, at the end of the day you're unlikely to have just a 'flat mat' of zoas. Finally, you'll need to consider par. This aquarium was a 220 so 30" inches of water top to bottom led to 80-130par (which is fine for many zoas).
As someone who's done this there's a handful of considerations. First, I found it necessary to lift the colonies off the sand bed every 3-4 months or the nitrates and phosphates would start to creep up on me ie old tank syndrome. Admittedly I had a lot of fish in that system. Second, nassarius snails, conchs, etc will disturb stuff even after colonies get above a certain size. This includes shifting the colony, creating trails in the substrate so a side might dip, and re-depositing sand onto your grow out disc. This isn't an issue for most strains but you want to keep an eye so that you don't have substrate (and detritus) getting caught between the polyps (no quicker way to burn out a colony). Thirdly, some z's and p's (specifically the bigger ones) will grow right off the disc and into substrate. On other's its just never gonna happen, but, at the end of the day you're unlikely to have just a 'flat mat' of zoas. Finally, you'll need to consider par. This aquarium was a 220 so 30" inches of water top to bottom led to 80-130par (which is fine for many zoas).
You missed a spot I can still see a little of your sandbed
I'm obviously not anywhere near there yet, but can a zoa head just be trimmed off, not fragged off of the colony?
I use trim interchangeably with fragging. If you cut off the head odds are it’ll just die.
