Discussion: How to make Zoas and Palys Grow Faster

[duke4130]

I wanted to start a discussion on everyone's experiences on how you make your Zoas and Palys grow faster? A side topic of this is, what methods do you utilize to get the biggest healthiest polyps..ie.. Water parameters, placement, flow..etc? I have heard various methods on how to have healthy fast growing zoas and palys. I have had some that grow fast and large and others that just get to a standstill and don't produce any babies. It is almost like they just exist and don't do anything. I would love to hear every ones experiences! Before and after pictures would be great too!

 

[TheClark]

Here are a few things on my list gathered over the years:

- Feed the palys, they love it. Frozen, soaked pellets, flakes etc..
- Iodine supplementation (be careful, consider testing)
- Vitamin C dosing
- Use of chemi clean when zoas don't look good and you have some cyano.
- Dip frags in peroxide / water to help them out for pests and algae on frags

I honestly don't do any of these now, they grow pretty well on their own but gathered these over the years googling the same topic.

Interested in what others have to say, tagging along.

 

[duke4130]

Here are a few things on my list gathered over the years:

- Feed the palys, they love it. Frozen, soaked pellets, flakes etc..
- Iodine supplementation (be careful, consider testing)
- Vitamin C dosing
- Use of chemi clean when zoas don't look good and you have some cyano.
- Dip frags in peroxide / water to help them out for pests and algae on frags

I honestly don't do any of these now, they grow pretty well on their own but gathered these over the years googling the same topic.

Interested in what others have to say, tagging along.

Does the Vitamin C dosing really work??? I have done it before and have mixed feelings on it

 

[TheClark]

Does the Vitamin C dosing really work??? I have done it before and have mixed feelings on it

I wish I could say with any authority, but just dabbled with it. Perhaps others have opinions but mine is neutral as well.

 

[H2O]

I keep a mixed reef 1/4 zoas they r not my fav coral but I like to see them happy imo they grow best when my tank is some what dirty and the no3 po4 is not above 5 ones the tank gets very clean no3 po4 at 0 some of them close up start falling of the rock like they doing imigration of some kind also if the nutrients get to high then they get over run with algee close up and melt away never seen that happen to the toxic palys that slime those will stay out of the water for a month a come back to life

 

[joshporksandwich]

Very nice guys thanks for contributing.

 

[reefwars]

I have prob tried everything over the years to achieve both growth and colors , and I'm back to square one lol

What I mean is I'm back to simple chemistry and growth and colors have never been better. I don't feed palys anymore not that there were any problems but since stopping I'm getting the same growth so I'm not sure if it's the most efficient way to get growth. I keep a fairly high bioload mostly housekeeping fish that have been with me a while each tank has three large tangs , clowns , cardinals , wrasses etc. No hermits but the odd large snail lingers ( I glued polyps to eir backs last year so there now an interesting feature lol ) the system has a monster of a skimmer on it and is carbon dosed with vinegar and compared to pellets or ethanol the system seems to have taken to the vinegar incredibly well (been two years) the system keeps stable parameters via doser for bicarbonate and calcium chloride and also has an ATO. I run gfo but rarely needs changing as combined the carbon dosing keeps both po4 and no3 in check for quite some time.i do %30 water changes every two weeks.

Some things I've noticed :

growth is bit limited by the angle they face to light for one , polyps that face the light on angles don't grow as fast as polyps that are facing straight up so I try to arrange frags in a way they all face up.

Colors vary with nutrients and lighting , it comes down to the colors your trying to achieve. I keep low nutrients but there is a fine line between low and just to low. If nutrients get to low polyp size gets small and they are more risk for melting away. If lighting is to bright oranges, pinks and reds will wash away but if kept low will stay bright and become dark in lower lighting. Some colors can burn out altogether if lights are to strong and nutrients pushed to low.

Tank swaps , a shock to the polyps enviroment often gives a growth spurt whether it's a new polyp glued to a plug that gets a different angle of light and flow or a new piece added from one system to your system you've prob noticed polyps form right away and the coral seems to take off but sadly then the coral stalls in growth not long after. By taking a piece and switching the tanks they are in you can get sudden little growth spurts regularly

Flow I found to be important , it plays a role in polyp size and skirt size quite noticeably but overall health seems to be better with strong flow in my shallow tank a top down look could never be had with all my power heads running. I don't keep lps or other corals that don't handle flow well.

I keep my Alk around 8 and calcium around 430 and temp is always stable at 79 degrees. My po4 is around 0.006 and nitrates undetectable. I rarely add anything besides a drop of amino acids and maybe some live rotos(very rarely )

No carbon for me but keep it in case I need to and I use d-d h2ocean salt and have for years ive tried others but for whatever reason that salt seems to adapt well to my system.

I run a fuge filled with liverock as there's none in the systems and my sump is filled from end to end with feather dusters and yellow sponges lol not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing lol

 

[reefwars]

Love the strats btw , my favorite polyp to date and it's on the top of my list for some time but have yet to source them.....figures lol

 

[duke4130]

I have prob tried everything over the years to achieve both growth and colors , and I'm back to square one lol

What I mean is I'm back to simple chemistry and growth and colors have never been better. I don't feed palys anymore not that there were any problems but since stopping I'm getting the same growth so I'm not sure if it's the most efficient way to get growth. I keep a fairly high bioload mostly housekeeping fish that have been with me a while each tank has three large tangs , clowns , cardinals , wrasses etc. No hermits but the odd large snail lingers ( I glued polyps to eir backs last year so there now an interesting feature lol ) the system has a monster of a skimmer on it and is carbon dosed with vinegar and compared to pellets or ethanol the system seems to have taken to the vinegar incredibly well (been two years) the system keeps stable parameters via doser for bicarbonate and calcium chloride and also has an ATO. I run gfo but rarely needs changing as combined the carbon dosing keeps both po4 and no3 in check for quite some time.i do 0 water changes every two weeks.

Some things I've noticed :

growth is bit limited by the angle they face to light for one , polyps that face the light on angles don't grow as fast as polyps that are facing straight up so I try to arrange frags in a way they all face up.

Colors vary with nutrients and lighting , it comes down to the colors your trying to achieve. I keep low nutrients but there is a fine line between low and just to low. If nutrients get to low polyp size gets small and they are more risk for melting away. If lighting is to bright oranges, pinks and reds will wash away but if kept low will stay bright and become dark in lower lighting. Some colors can burn out altogether if lights are to strong and nutrients pushed to low.

Tank swaps , a shock to the polyps enviroment often gives a growth spurt whether it's a new polyp glued to a plug that gets a different angle of light and flow or a new piece added from one system to your system you've prob noticed polyps form right away and the coral seems to take off but sadly then the coral stalls in growth not long after. By taking a piece and switching the tanks they are in you can get sudden little growth spurts regularly

Flow I found to be important , it plays a role in polyp size and skirt size quite noticeably but overall health seems to be better with strong flow in my shallow tank a top down look could never be had with all my power heads running. I don't keep lps or other corals that don't handle flow well.

I keep my Alk around 8 and calcium around 430 and temp is always stable at 79 degrees. My po4 is around 0.006 and nitrates undetectable. I rarely add anything besides a drop of amino acids and maybe some live rotos(very rarely )

No carbon for me but keep it in case I need to and I use d-d h2ocean salt and have for years ive tried others but for whatever reason that salt seems to adapt well to my system.

I run a fuge filled with liverock as there's none in the systems and my sump is filled from end to end with feather dusters and yellow sponges lol not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing lol

Funny you mentioned the lighting. One thing I have noticed along with regular husbandry of keeping zoas and palys is lighting. I was running my lighting high off the tank because i was afraid that i was going to burn the corals. I just picked up the new radion mount from Ecotech and my lighting is only about 8-10 inches from the water line now. With in a day I saw a noticeable difference. My friend and I both have some of the same livestock and it is interesting to see the difference in the z/p under different lighting and parameters. I personally use Tropic Marin Pro Reef and he uses NSW. Some things do better in my tank than in his and other better in his than in mine. So the water is different and the lighting. Is it because of the different nutrients that are available in natural sea water opposed to synthetic sea salts? We keep trying to figure out the reason behind this. What kind of lighting is everyone running?

 

[H2O]

What ever salt mix u use that won't change zoa color but diff lights will I run 8 bulb T5 on a shallow reef never had anything bleach from the light or loose color if it did it means I got the water to clean to fast and a lot more light is reaching the bottom some zoas like the light others don't I noticed a lot of chalice zoas morph in tanks that run led people who switched to led had bleached a lot of coral before they found the right setting also some stuff changed colors where the named coral looks like a fake so leds can be a bit tricky they improved a lot but still need some touch up

 

[reefwars]

Another thing to think about besides angle of polyps is the surface area for growth , growth will be slow when there's voids or gaps to jump , shady crevices or simply no where to grow or places where there is little light etc.

Colonie density eventually becomes a factor of slower growth , large dominant polyps out compete the structure for space and light , the smaller polyps either die when formed or stop forming there altogether while the center polyps become huge in size.

I had a single red hornet polyp for three years never grew a single polyp or sprouted a baby , it was mind boggling considering everything else grew fine . I grow them now just fine but for what ever reason it was my first true red hornet and didn't do anything for me so i always assumed dirt slow grower lol it eventually shrunk and died. I've bout them since and they grow quickly yet that one polyp didn't so It appears sometimes the individual polyp can either shut down completely for growth yet stay alive or they can slow growth until maybe needed or environment suits that polyps needs?

 

[N1Husker]

I had a lot of trouble with the zoa's opening and I had one of the LFS tell me that I should try AminoOmega from Brightwells. I dose this daily and my zoa;s and palys are wide open and grow very well.

 

[ahmed.boomer]

A developed tank is probably the single best thing. Once the tank is stable, you can try different methods to enhance growth. I keep zoas in lower flow and medium light areas. I have posted two pictures. The first is from September 1st of this year and the second from today. Given these are some of the fastest growing ones I have. Keep algae, copepods and other nuisance pests off, zoas will be fine. I personally like slightly higher nutrients in my system. It does cause hair algae, but growth all around (even SPS) is better.

 

[duke4130]

A developed tank is probably the single best thing. Once the tank is stable, you can try different methods to enhance growth. I keep zoas in lower flow and medium light areas. I have posted two pictures. The first is from September 1st of this year and the second from today. Given these are some of the fastest growing ones I have. Keep algae, copepods and other nuisance pests off, zoas will be fine. I personally like slightly higher nutrients in my system. It does cause hair algae, but growth all around (even SPS) is better.

Very nice growth there!!!!

 

[rosshamsandwich]

Here are a few things on my list gathered over the years:

- Feed the palys, they love it. Frozen, soaked pellets, flakes etc..
- Iodine supplementation (be careful, consider testing)
- Vitamin C dosing
- Use of chemi clean when zoas don't look good and you have some cyano.
- Dip frags in peroxide / water to help them out for pests and algae on frags

I honestly don't do any of these now, they grow pretty well on their own but gathered these over the years googling the same topic.

Interested in what others have to say, tagging along.

ghreat