# ZOAs



## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

I have recently stepped up my tank husbandry. I had always been slack in routine maintenance but now I chance 5% water every week. I have an RO/DI unit (0TDS reading) which I never did previously and since I have started this the couple of zoas I had (small colonies on frag plugs and live rock) have slowly disappeared. I am baffled by this as my xenia, hammer and frogpawn have really started to flourish and they werent suffering before either. 

I dont test my parameters so I know that will be a start to see what the hell happened 

I thought Zoas were indestructable


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

The hammerhead and frogspawn killed them. I had the same corals in my tank and all my zoas disappeared, with 0 readings on my tests.


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## teemee (Aug 29, 2009)

Hey Kamal,
It's probably just a placement issue.
Some zoas need more light/flow....
They might have had too much light/flow...
And they like food, too!
If you want to try again, just get a couple of cheap frags and put them in different places in the tank, and see which are doing better.
I've had to move some around on plenty of occasions...


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

They like food? What should I feed them and how?


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

Not all like food. Depends on the species. Button polyps like brine shrimp. Eagle Eye don't eat, they need medium-high light.


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## teemee (Aug 29, 2009)

I think food is secondary... Right now you just need to figure out where to put them 
If you're coming to the bbq, I can give you a couple of nothing special frags to try and figure it out. That said, there are people on reef central that think palys and zoas from different areas have completely different requirements. Which makes sense, but honestly, unless you get them in a shipment, who knows where they came from...
Re. food - I just turn off the powerhead at night for a while and feed a mixture of cyclopeeze, nutramar ova, shrimp and oyster eggs, mysis and brine. But I'm also feeding my gorgonians... Even the photosynthetic ones have a feast on it.


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## JayPetro (Feb 8, 2012)

My zoas do best with no water changes, lots of food for the fish (=poop for zoas) and no skimmer. And I have a LOT of zoas. Teemee is also right about ones coming from.different areas. I know I have a bit more trouble with Hawaiian palys than anything....a shame too cause some of them are the nicest around.


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## teemee (Aug 29, 2009)

JayPetro said:


> My zoas do best with no water changes, lots of food for the fish (=poop for zoas) and no skimmer. And I have a LOT of zoas. Teemee is also right about ones coming from.different areas. I know I have a bit more trouble with Hawaiian palys than anything....a shame too cause some of them are the nicest around.


Hawaiian ones are gorgeous - haven't had any in a while, but when I had them (before I shut that tank down) they were okay. My problem is always the caribbean ones... I never have any luck with them...

I do water changes, but on my 30g seahorse tank (=lots of food waste) with photo and non-photo gorgornians (=more food waste), I have a hob filter (which I rarely switch the carbon out on), an hob fuge, no skimmer, and ~5-10 g water changes every week to 2... So they get well fed.
But I've had to move several frags around to make sure everything was happy...


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

Thanks for the advice guys  I am not sure about the bbq as I have a lot going on with an impending house move and busy work schedule. 

I will try and shuffle these things around and see if that helps.


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## Bayinaung (Feb 24, 2012)

JayPetro said:


> My zoas do best with no water changes, lots of food for the fish (=poop for zoas) and no skimmer. And I have a LOT of zoas. Teemee is also right about ones coming from.different areas. I know I have a bit more trouble with Hawaiian palys than anything....a shame too cause some of them are the nicest around.


Woa... this is news. no water change and with poop! can you tell me where your zoas come from?

oh man, I don't know where mine came from...

some came from Indo-pacific...

where are the ones that reef-raft gets coming from? are they indo-pacific also or hawaii? time to call them.

this might explain why some responds well in my tank while others are just flat-lining.


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## teemee (Aug 29, 2009)

Bayinaung said:


> Woa... this is news. no water change and with poop! can you tell me where your zoas come from?
> 
> oh man, I don't know where mine came from...
> 
> ...


The ones that came in recently were from Taiwan, but they are getting Caribbean ones in soon.


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

I find that zoas like the water a bit on the dirty side...which is hard when keeping a mixed reef with sps that like clean water. 

i look at every type of zoa differently. some take off and grow like no other like my candy apple red's or watermelon zoas, whereas some never grow, i've been counting the same 8 polyps of my devils armour forever hoping for more growth. they have been at 8 polyps for over a year! haha


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

ok time to try some different little buggers then  

Any suggestions on a hardy variety?


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

imo, those regular green ones with a yellow skirt grow in anything..lol


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## Bayinaung (Feb 24, 2012)

teemee said:


> The ones that came in recently were from Taiwan, but they are getting Caribbean ones in soon.


are taiwanese ones the same as Japanese zoas? or are these aquacultured with origins from Indo-pacific.


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## Bayinaung (Feb 24, 2012)

Flexin5 said:


> imo, those regular green ones with a yellow skirt grow in anything..lol


yeah you left a boatload of them in that little tank! lol

oh the little purple ones also seem to grow abundantly too.

I recently lost two cherry PPE polyps to general mucking around in the tank. might have tossed it with debris.


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

Ok well all of my corals seemed to be doing badly so I went through everything that changed recently in order to trouble shoot whilst I await my new test kits.

I was running two koralia 425gph power heads but recently got a maxijet1200 which was to be used to run my brs reactor (once i finish my diy stand) in the mean time I ran it as an additional power head. I turned that thing off and right away everything is looking super fly again  I will be getting some more zoa frags this week on the assumption it was way too much flow that was upsetting the last lot. 

I will post my parameters once the test kits arrive


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

I can't tell you how much I hate the maxijett....
It's not really a good powerhead but will do in a pinch though.

How's the new light doing dude? When I had it on my tank all the coral loved the lights but it did give me a bit of algae.


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

Agreed maxijet suck! But it was free and will in fact power my carbon reactor  

The lights rock! I am thinking of switching out the whites on the led strip to be all blue though. No algae issues to speak of and my xenia is flourishing again (it hated led only) My hammer is fully extended and my frogspawn has added a couple of heads.


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