Zoa growth

[Pauliex77x]

My 25 lagoon as been up and running since last Thanksgiving and I added my first corals around January. Most of my zoas I've had for about 7 months or more now. I'm not getting the growth I feel I should be. Here's the results of my last full test.

I know my alk was low so for the last two weeks ive been keeping it between 7.7 and 8.5. I feed coralaminos daily along with iodine 2 times a week. I also feed reef roids once a week.

My newest zoas have gone from 2 to 5 heads in a little over 2 months but the rest of them seem stuck with zero growth. The first zoas I got don't even open for the most part. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Would dosing trace elements help?

 

[Oscar47f]

I would pick a number and try and maintain it for alk... stability is key... you may not have a nutrient problem since you mentioned you’re a heavy feeder... what lights do you use ?

 

[PicassoClown04]

Light, high nutrients, stability. That’s was zoas need. Maybe try some reefroids? Are they getting too much flow?

 

[Oscar47f]

Also you feed Brightwell coral aminos ? So if you want to get nutrient up I would recommend you switch to Red Sea AB+ or aquavitro Fuel... coral aminos is awesome I use it myself but I have higher nutrients that’s why I use it because it doesn’t raise my nutrient levels...it’s just amino acids... Red Sea AB+ and Fuel have carbohydrates and other things apart from amino acid chains that could help you..

 

[Oscar47f]

Also yes as mentioned before stability is key.. certain zoanthids love light and lots of flow and others do not... so if your zoanthids look stretched out or long move then higher in the tank and if they close up a lot maybe higher or lower flow...

 

[littlebigreef]

You aquarium also isn't mature yet. It takes time to build up the micro fauna that break down waste and add their own organics to the water. Once your tank is mature and you're feeding your fish, feeding reef roids and anything else you'll see an uptick in zoa growth. This is one of those things where you just have to give it time. I don't personally believe your answer is in the bottom a bottle.

As @Oscar47f pointed out alk stability is very important for zoas. Not so much for growth but to prevent tick!ng off the zoas. Alk swings can stunt growth or cause melting but shouldn't be throttling down growth.

 

[ReefReadyYouTube]

Can you post before and after pictures?

 

[Pauliex77x]

I have a 4 bulb T5 fixture with 2 blue plus, 1 coral plus and one actinic bulb that runs on a 12 hour day. 7am actinic and 1 blue plus on 9am coral plus and second blue plus and the reverse at 7pm and 9pm

Light, high nutrients, stability. That’s was zoas need. Maybe try some reefroids? Are they getting too much flow?

I do feed reef roids 1x a week along with the coralaminos daily. The fuge basket with chaeto and the IM chaetomaxx light is keeping phosphates and nitrates low. I haven't even been running my skimmer.

 

[Pauliex77x]

Can you post before and after pictures?

Here are when I first got them

And here is them now

The last zoa is the newest it's grown 4 new heads in about 2 months.

 

[ZiBiReef]

Try fragging.. I heard from a zoa farmer that it jumps the zoa to form babies because it thinks it's getting eaten. Worth a shot

 

[Oscar47f]

How’s your flow ? And the par? Yeah as previously mentioned your system might need further maturing.. it’ll take time, you can always dip your zoanthids and such idk about the fragging but if you want to try it go ahead !

 

[Pauliex77x]

Flow is good. I run a jebao slw 20 and 2 sicce .5 return pumps. The jebao is only at about 40%. Par I'm not sure about. I was running an AI prime hd for the first 6 months then switched to the quad t5 fixture. The light is about 4 inches off the surface and it's only 12" deep. 4 ati bulbs should be plenty. I don't see any reaching for light or anything of that sort. The one set of zoas actually has been closed for the better part of the last 4 months.

 

[ReefReadyYouTube]

They looks healthy so that’s what’s important. So just give it more time. This stuff doesn’t happen in weeks.

 

[Oscar47f]

Your lights may be a little too close.. could be light they’re not used to and yeah waiting for them to adjust is gonna take a while

 

[Pauliex77x]

I'm not gonna do anything crazy. All my LPS and my GSP are growing really well. Acan has 3 new heads coming in, favia has more than doubled in size, and my galaxia.staryed out with a single head now has about 8 or 9. Even my ricordea looks like its gotten bigger in 2 months.

 

[Oscar47f]

I'm not gonna do anything crazy. All my LPS and my GSP are growing really well. Acan has 3 new heads coming in, favia has more than doubled in size, and my galaxia.staryed out with a single head now has about 8 or 9. Even my ricordea looks like its gotten bigger in 2 months.

Yeah I mean you don’t have to change anything just wait for them to adjust to the stronger lighting if everything is doing well then don’t make drastic changes