I’m pretty sure I got some Zoas from newsalter (Chris). They are brownish and have green on the insides of them which makes them have a sweet glow in the dark look with just the actinic VHO on them. Is there anything special I need to do for these guys? I’ve read they have ‘intermediate’ lighting needs and about the same for flow. Whatever is classified as ‘intermediate’ I’m not sure.
I’ve got them placed fairly high in the water column to get them as close as possible to the light and have been feeding them frozen mysis for the past three nights. Most of the polyps were opened up today and took the shrimp happily. I have a power head across the tank with its blast pointed at them and it flows about 70% of the day (its on a timer). It has enough flow to waver their stalks a bit but doesn’t seem to be too much where they close up.
I realize they will do better with better lighting and I’m working on getting the T5’s up, but how will they fair without?
i dont think lighting is a big issues with these guys. i had a frag fall of my rack and was sitting on the sand behind my rockwork for over a week and a half before i found it. when i did it had three new polps on the side fo the plug facing up.
First off congratulations on you’re first coral! You’ve had you’re first sample, you’ll be addicted in no time if you’re not already.
Got lucky with which type you got as well as zoanthids are what I often recommend as a good first time coral. Though, I do urge you to do a tiny bit of reading on Palytoxins. Lack of knowledge and understanding of the dangers posed by the animals you’re keeping can be dangerous and even deadly.
Good question as it’s pretty pointless to tell someone new to the hobby(or even someone experienced for that matter) that something is in high, medium, or low light as it is all relative. I’ve talked to many people who were just starting out who were trying to keep corals with out a single power head in their tank, some didn’t even know what one was.
Anyways, I would ignore those recommendations for light and flow as many LFS sales people and websites will spew out information about flow and light just to make it sound as if they know a little something about the coral. Many corals are fussy on lighting and flow requirements, but zoanthids generally are not. There are different Zoanthid species with different requirements. As a general rule they can handle pretty low lighting, but grow faster with brighter light. They can get too much light though.
It’s a good idea if you get a coral and are not aware of what lighting you’re coral has been kept under for three solid months, to keep it at the bottom of you’re tank to start and slowly work it up if you desire after a couple of days. Corals can handle a shape change from bright light to low light, but when thrown under bright light when they are not acclimated they will often stress and may even bleach.(very bad)
I’ve kept zoanthids and had them reproduce in very low flow and fairly high flow as well. Perhaps if we get pictures more people can post if they have kept similar zoanthids and what conditions they have had luck keeping them in.
To save some time as well post what sort of flow and lighting you have.
Sorry I tend to be a bit long winded, but hope the info was helpfull.
I’m already addicted! After looking at Icy’s tank, I was even more-so addicted.
Yes, I made sure to cut my finger and then jab it into the Zoas…just kidding, but how careful do you need to be? I tried to avoid touching them directly but couldn’t help it a few times. I’m not dead yet.
Ok, so its pretty much just figure it out on your system? They seem to be happy for now. Do they always close up at night with no lights and then open up with the lights? That’s what they have been doing so far.
When I first put them in most of the them were closed except for a few. Each day more and more are opening back up, about 90% were opened this morning. I assume this is a sign they are doing well?
My lighting is a basic florescent single 4’ bulb deal. The Zoas looked like they liked the “natural daylight” bulb better so I threw that one in. I’ve also got a single VHO behind that with a reflector thrown over top. I currently only have actinic bulbs for it.
As for flow I’ve got a ~850 gph pump that returns water from my wet/dry sump and a maxi-jet ~1100 PH. I think I came out to somewhere around 1000 gph on my 55 gallon tank. The PH doesn’t always run, but runs around 70% of the time.
What other corals are good for starters? Or good for low lighting and low flow? I am pretty confident I can keep my water chemistry well.
All of mine close up all night long and open about 5-10 minutes after the lights come on.
Often time zoas after being transported will stay closed up for a long time. It’s a good sign that they are slowly opening up for you.
You should let you’re power heads run 24/7. Many corals expel waste at night and if it is not carried away from them it will begin to rot on their flesh and leave entry ways for pests and disease. Try to keep you’re flow steady 24/7.
It’s tricky with the lighting you have to pick some more corals. It is going to be really limiting. Really should look into skipping getting corals until you’re next pay check and then upgrading you’re lighting. I would recommend T5 HO.
If you really wanted to get something right now I would say try some yellow polyps or some more zoanthids or palys. You could keep non-photosynthetic corals under that lighting, but most of them are a real challenge to keep and I wouldn’t recommend it until you are prepared to take them on.
If time allows I’ll be stopping by DPA today to pick up T5 bulbs. My Icecap SLRs, endcaps, and stand offs arrived the other day along with my ridiculously expensive salifert test kits.
Unitll you get the T5’s set up, I would stick to zoanthids, mushrooms, and perhaps a bubble or fox coral. Just make sure when you do upgrade your lights that you shade them, especially the bubble/fox. It is fairly easy to kill stuff by switching to a to intense light to quickly.
Just so everyone knows, the Zoas are doing great, mostly all of them have opened up and they look fairly happy. Some of them have their edges curled up, but it looks like because they are touching each other.
I do have a question though. My emerald crab has been hanging around them when I come down with either the lights off or just the actinics on. He doesn’t look like he is bothering them, but he may be trying to steal their food as they usually go to sleep with a piece of mysis hanging out or someother piece of food. Is the emerald hanging over them something to worry about? I’ve been chasing him away, but I’ve no doubt as soon as night time comes he’s back hanging out in the midst of them.
dont think you need to worry. its the little things like this that keeps us awake at nite…lol i never had any critter mess with my zoas except for crazy snails that crawl all over them. i did have a very large emerald crawl out of tank and end up in my bathroom ya weird things happen in my piece of the sea.
Some people have reported problem with emeralds, but some people have kept them for many years with out problems. I think the big problem is if you have a soft coral the eats a lot. A large frilly mushroom that has closed over a bunch of mysis shrimp could just be an easy to open pop-corn bag full of yummy treats to a hungry emerald crab. Zoanthids are not heavy feeders, but just keep an eye on the little bugger.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:6, topic:775”]
You should let you’re power heads run 24/7. Many corals expel waste at night and if it is not carried away from them it will begin to rot on their flesh and leave entry ways for pests and disease. Try to keep you’re flow steady 24/7. [/quote]
Jon, I’m confused, you were saying to rawdawg that LFS and such over sell large pumps and suggest that his ~300 gph pump might be ok for his 92 gallon tank, but you suggest that I should run my PH 100% of the time when my pump flows 3x of that pump. Is this because the corals should have DIRECT flow on them or is it a total flow issue (guessing not)?
Thanks for the advice.
true very true and every six hours the tide changes. i have my power heads angled to create current but would like to have a wave maker. may try to make one when i change tanks around. just place power heads so they compete wit each other to move water in all directions and you will be fine. i am recirculating around 1500 gph
True in most places it is not constant however if I were sitting on a Caribbean beach and saw the ocean just completely stop moving I would grab my loved ones and head for the hills and start praying to every god every thought of and then some.
The ocean never sits still and linear flow is fine for just about all the corals we keep. There is always a certain extent of random motion in our tanks because of the complexity of the environment.
My point was that I think a lot of people run a lot bigger return pump then they really need. If you’re pump is putting out stronger flow then you’re power heads then you may be pumping too much water up, or you’re power heads may not be strong enough. Difficult to say with out sitting infront of you’re tank. I also hadn’t yet said that, “~300 gph pump might be ok for his 92 gallon tank”.
It is my belief and there will probably be others that will disagree that you shouldn’t hardly count on flow from you’re return pump at all to move water in you’re display tank. It is a lot cheaper to move water from right outside of the power head to right infront of it then it is to pump water up a tube and threw 3 or more 90* turns.(cheaper in size of pump required and electricity to do so) Moving large amounts of water like that can also cause more noise in you’re plumbing and more splashing in you’re sump and would likely not increase the amount of water being filter in you’re sump.
If you’re only filtration in you’re sump is a skimmer and it can not pull in water as fast as it is being rushed up and down in you’re pipes, then the extra water is going up and down for no reason at all. It’s like driving to the grocery store in a large SUV to buy one item each day.(perhaps not the perfect analogy) Get it all done in one trip and save some gas.
It is my belief and there will probably be others that will disagree that you shouldn't hardly count on flow from you're return pump at all to move water in you're display tank
I couldnt agree more. I dont even consider my returns when i think of flow. My return serves one purpose: filtration. Ive got my return pump dialed back and T’d off so many times its not even funny. IMO, the slower the better. It gives all the detritus a chance to settle down in your fuge and sump. Like Jon pointed out, powerheads are much more efficicent than return pumps and often times much more energy efficient as well. The other thing to consider when having a high turnover rate with your return is if your overflow becomes partially obstructed your much more likely to have a flood because it wont be able to drain fast enough to keep up with your return rate.
Got to ask while we are on the topic:
“Ive got my return pump dialed back and T’d off so many times its not even funny.” Consider swapping out for a smaller pump? May only save you 3-4 dollars a month on you’re electric bill, but if you’re pump has a couple of years use you may already be near time to replace it anyways. You could save the bigger pump and use it for your future FO set up. Not that it really hardly ever motivates anyone in the hobby to do anything, but you could also replace it with a smaller pump to reduce you’re carbon footprint and take a little stress off the environment.
Great point on the likely hood for a flood. I never go anywhere close to the max amount of water that my overflow boxes or drain tubes can handle for two reasons. First things are 99.9% likely to get jammed up with a little bit of something(like a snail or hopefully not a fish). Secondly noise level.
#1 I like to open it all the way up once or twice a week. It kicks up so much detritus off my rockwork its amazing. Its also a lot easier than using a turkey baster.
#2 Ive always liked running a manifold off of my larger return pump without worry about the loss of pressure. It allows you to consolidate all the feed pumps used for misc equip. I dont do this in my current setup because it was done one piece at a time but i will do it on my big FOWLR.
A larger pump leaves a lot of room for flexibility and future expansion. Also, a lot of the times the cost difference in buying one size large is almost negligible. Compare the the couple of dollars i could save on electricty with the cost of having to buy a new return pump because i changed configuration or the cost of a 2nd pump becuase i want to add a reactor and i think buying a larger pump is more practical.
I know that some people say restricting the output of a pump shortens the life of a pump but ill belive it when i see it. I think the life of a return pump in a saltwater environment is arbitrary and the main factor is quality of build and manufacturer. Ive been running a dialed back little giant pump for my return for years and i bought it used on ebay for $30 and its never had so much as a hickup.
