RK Hallucinations Not Growing

[Reefhabit]

Hi,
Is there a secret to growing this zoa? I got mine about a year ago and it grew about 5 polyps. I ended up fragging it and saved myself one polyp but it's been a single polyp for 6 months now.

 

[Capitol Reef Corals]

Pics? I am interested to see how it is looking and how you fragged it.

 

[novanosis]

What are your parameters?

What lighting and filtration do you have?

 

[Addicted2Coral]

These grow in spurts from my experience. I've also noticed solo polyps don't always do the best with hallucinations. For some reason when I had a colony they were growing like weeds. Then again, every tank is different!

 

[Sonnyred]

These grow in spurts from my experience. I've also noticed solo polyps don't always do the best with hallucinations. For some reason when I had a colony they were growing like weeds. Then again, every tank is different!

I must agree to the colony vs single theory

 

[titlowda]

I have a single polyp on my frag rack and I am pounding it with light. 4" under the water, XR15's at 35%. It popped 2 polyps in less than a month. Not sure if it will help you but high light helped me on this and a few other zoas.

 

[Sonnyred]

I have a single polyp on my frag rack and I am pounding it with light. 4" under the water, XR15's at 35%. It popped 2 polyps in less than a month. Not sure if it will help you but high light helped me on this and a few other zoas.

I’ve always thought zoas like low light low flow. I’m actually going to give this a try. Thanks for the advise

 

[titlowda]

For me hallucination, space monsters and bowtie blasters are doing great in high light high flow. The last two have doubled in the last month. They did not do well at the bottom of my 20" tank.

 

[titlowda]

If you do some searching on google there are some websites that people have cataloged zoas preferences.

 

[littlebigreef]

I'll also attest to the fact that halls are slow growing (especially as single polyps) and take a long time to start kicking out new babies after the mother colony is fragged. I started with 2p last July. I've fragged 4-5 polyps off 3 different times. Each time the colony took months to start growing again. Its probably back to 12-15p now.

On the other hand you have speckled kraks that grow like weeds or buttkissers where fragging seems to actually fuel growth.

 

[Rakie]

Fragging in general is a destructive process, fragging any coral slows it's growth. Zoas grow at an exponential rate. Each individual zoa may take between 2-8 weeks to grow a single polyp. That means it takes two polyps 2-8 weeks to grow two polyps (one each), which means it takes 16 polpys 2-8 weeks to grow 16 polyps (one each).

The more you have, the more babies you get.

You want a banging colony? Don't ever frag it, ever. Fragging from 5 polyps down to 1 means you just destroyed like 6 months growth, and started over at the beginning.

 

[eamike261]

Fragging in general is a destructive process, fragging any coral slows it's growth. Zoas grow at an exponential rate. Each individual zoa may take between 2-8 weeks to grow a single polyp. That means it takes two polyps 2-8 weeks to grow two polyps (one each), which means it takes 16 polpys 2-8 weeks to grow 16 polyps (one each).

The more you have, the more babies you get.

You want a banging colony? Don't ever frag it, ever. Fragging from 5 polyps down to 1 means you just destroyed like 6 months growth, and started over at the beginning.

Does the polynomial growth continue once the colony gets big enough to encompass heads in the middle? i.e. if there is no room in the middle of colony for a new head to grow will a new will still sprout and push the rest outwards?

 

[Rakie]

They grow on the outside edge, out from the center

 

[NemHost]

Does the polynomial growth continue once the colony gets big enough to encompass heads in the middle? i.e. if there is no room in the middle of colony for a new head to grow will a new will still sprout and push the rest outwards?

They grow peripherally which is why if you have a large colony it’s best to frag from center