New to Zoas, advice wanted

[Roboson]

So I just got some live rock to seed my tank with coralline algae and other small life (got a couple tiny feather dusters, some amphipods, and a bit of macro out of the deal, so I'm very happy about that). And as a free gift the person sending me the rock gave me a zoa frag. I know very little about these guys and plan on doing more research over the weekend, but I thought I'd post a few questions here to give me a head start.

1) Where in the tank should I place the frag? (It's just a small rock with some Zoas on it).

2) Will hermit crabs bother them? They're just dwarf blue legs.

3) What kind of coral eating/bothering pests should I watch out for?

4) How long do they take to open?

5) How much light should they get?


My tank itself is a ten gallon tank. It's my first tank and right now it only has hermit crabs, hitch hikers, and some macro. No fish or anything larger than a small hermit. It's about 3-4 months old and the water is a tiny bit on the nutrient rich side, but still normal as far as I can tell.

 

[Snorty2668]

What kind of light are you using? But place them in the sand for now they have to adust to the change. Hermits will clean the zoas but won't bother them

 

[tupes]

For zoas, this is the main thing I would look for (see attached photo). They will devour your zoas. Found one on my frag of Rastas. When I pulled it off half of the polyp was gone.

I've received some that open in a hour and some that might take a day. Just depends on it getting use to your tank.

As for light. Place hem on the sand for now. If they are stretching making them with a long stalk. They need more light.

 

[Roboson]

I think I saw one of those starfish on the rock that I got, but it's hidden itself right now. It's nowhere near my Zoas though.


What about flow? The sand in my tank doesn't have strong flow, should I try to find a spot higher up?

 

[Reefnoobie12]

flow depends on the polyps, they are one of the easiest corals to take care of because they can adjust to so many different parameters. I would just look at them over a couple weeks and see how they are doing.