How to keep zoas?

[TRIGGERMAN]

Zoas are simple DIRTY water. The problem is so many people want to have a mixed reef. It is much easier said than done because so many corals require different water quality/lighting and flow. Most SPS need the cleaner water while zoas and LPS flourish and thrive in dirtier water, sooner or later you are going to end up pissing something off. I think and this is from all my personal experiences that the easiest way to successfully keep SPS and also LPS and zoas at the same time is to have 2 separate systems. One for The LPS and Zoas that you keep dirtier w/ medium lighting and flow and an SPS that you keep super high flow w/ strong lighting and cleaner water. Having a lot of SPS also sucks a lot of your elements up which other corals need too so unless you are on top of your dosing or running reactors it is much harder to keep those levels in check. I think those are all factors of why zoas melt and don't survive in mixed reef aquariums, especially smaller ones.

 

[dubs]

triggerman ur right alot of aspect but i heve a serious mix reef growning and i have all of the coral metion and so far so good so it can be done it just a pita till u get it fiugured out and once u do u keep ur routine and it should be good

 

[Rob&Gab]

Zoas are simple DIRTY water. The problem is so many people want to have a mixed reef. It is much easier said than done because so many corals require different water quality/lighting and flow. Most SPS need the cleaner water while zoas and LPS flourish and thrive in dirtier water, sooner or later you are going to end up pissing something off. I think and this is from all my personal experiences that the easiest way to successfully keep SPS and also LPS and zoas at the same time is to have 2 separate systems. One for The LPS and Zoas that you keep dirtier w/ medium lighting and flow and an SPS that you keep super high flow w/ strong lighting and cleaner water. Having a lot of SPS also sucks a lot of your elements up which other corals need too so unless you are on top of your dosing or running reactors it is much harder to keep those levels in check. I think those are all factors of why zoas melt and don't survive in mixed reef aquariums, especially smaller ones.

well its just true and false and just based upon peoples opinion's but zoas and palys dont necessarily thrive dirty water. i run a skimmer and all the things i need and my water is pretty clean and i have SPS, LPS and fish and feather dusters and everything seems to be fine. maby just my luck, but even tho you might be rite, i think its just how healthy they are where they come from and how there treated. cause if there comming from dirty to clean water i think they wont have a high rate of survival. but who knows its very tricky with coral.

 

[Rob&Gab]

trggerman ur right alot of aspect but i heve a serious mix reef growning and i have all of the coral metion and so far so good so it can be done it just a pita till u get it fiugured out and once u do u keep ur routine and it should be good

+1

 

[james1990]

from my experience, weekly target feeding of Vita C helps zoos

 

[Rob&Gab]

from my experience, weekly target feeding of Vita C helps zoos

+1 for that i do that once 2 times a week.

 

[BaaMNYC]

Vitamin c. Thanks!

 

[TRIGGERMAN]

well its just true and false and just based upon peoples opinion's but zoas and palys dont necessarily thrive dirty water. i run a skimmer and all the things i need and my water is pretty clean and i have SPS, LPS and fish and feather dusters and everything seems to be fine. maby just my luck, but even tho you might be rite, i think its just how healthy they are where they come from and how there treated. cause if there comming from dirty to clean water i think they wont have a high rate of survival. but who knows its very tricky with coral.

How is it true and false based on opinions? Talk about a contradicting statement! Considering I have been into reefing for about 5 years and I only speak from my own personal experience,other KNOWLEDGEABLE people's experiences and pure fact from research I don't see how anything I said could possibly be false or an opinion. Zoas THRIVE in dirtier water,some sps actually do as well. Most of the time when they melt they are in sps dominated systems and do so because the water is too clean and the sps suck up a lot of the elements as well which causes an imbalance that constantly needs to be corrected. I know plenty of people who have beautiful sps but can't keep zoas for the life of them and they are pretty much the easiest coral. Yes people can have mixed tanks and some stuff survives for short periods of time but sooner or later something happens they lose some sps or lose some zoas. It is extremely difficult to keep a stable balance for all of them long term. There is always something to fix and if you are not on top of it you will lose livestock. Like I said realistically the easiest way to keep corals happy is to have them separate. My next adventure will be a full blown SPS only system ,and a lps zoa system because I don't have the time or patience to dedicate my life to a fish tank and from my experience it is much easier to do 2 different tanks than constantly playing with 1. It's kind of like how you have different groups of friends and can't hang out with them together because they just wouldn't get along LOL

 

[bigcapct]

My zoas grow like crazy in my mixed frag tank. Without a Skimmer!

 

[BaaMNYC]

My zoas grow like crazy in my mixed frag tank. Without a Skimmer!

Do you dose your frag tank? What's your husbandry?

 

[bigcapct]

I only dose Lugols solution once a week 1 drop per 25g. Same as my 75mixed reef but that one I have a skimmer. No Gfo no carbon. Nothin!! Ask people come over and don't believe me till I show them what's under the hood. Lol

 

[bigcapct]

 

[BaaMNYC]

Nice. I just set this one up so I can admire zoas and hold frags from trimming.

 

[TRIGGERMAN]

My zoas grow like crazy in my mixed frag tank. Without a Skimmer!

keyword WITHOUT a skimmer. Your water is probably fairly dirty especially w/ a good size tang in there.

 

[bigcapct]

I just threw it in there. Just broke down my 6ft FOWLR. But I do have sps too. But I didn't choose to go skimmer less my pump broke and was too lazy to get it fixed. Lol