How to increase growth rates?

[Chelsey]

After reading on the nuclear green thread about how fast yours are growing, I want mine to grow fast too. How do you guys increase growth rates on your zoas/palys? I've got a 6 bulb T-5 fixture about 4" from the water in a 40 gallon breeder tank. Here are the zoas I want to grow fastest:
Nukes
PD
PPE
Crazy Daisy
Dungenous
Daisy Dukes
Red Wines

Any ideas?

 

[Chelsey]

Define good flow...3 Tunzes in a 58 gallon or a 40 breeder with an eheim 1260 return pump and a Tunze nano?

 

[reefboy]

i agree you gota feed it all goes to increase natural food population and to be honest zoo's dont do well in a low nutrient tanks.

 

[MarvinsReef]

I don't have a skimmer in my tank..

but coralnutz had a good advice... flow, stable water parameters, lighting, for some feeding helps...

seems like you've got them covered... one more thing.. leave them alone.. I know it's hard.. I bet I would've gotten better growth if I didn't move them around much.. haha.. also, try not to stare at them too much.. they get nervous having babies if we're watching them too much... haha.. :lol: now that's funnie! j/k..

anyway, good luck.. monthly pics of the colonies would be coolz.. I'm just now starting to do that... things have settled and I've got duplicates on most of my favorite zoas so I won't be touching the main colonies for a while.. will have monthly updated pics of them in the next coming months..

 

[Chelsey]

I'm trying to get frags of exactly what I want in the 40 breeder, as this is my display tank. For a while the 30 gallon was being stupid (I think we didn't have enough live rock in there) so I had to move everything into the 40. Now that things are situated I think I need to superglue the frags that I want to grow into colonies where I want them and just leave things alone I have a skimmer on my tank and it's relatively new...been setup for a while but not as stable as a tank that has been up 5 years. I'm battling a little bit of hair/bryopsis/? algae from the live rock (was uncured but is obviously cured now, still leeching a little bit of nasties though) so I know I've got some parameter issues, but nothing super serious. I've got a bar of cyclopeeze...how often should I feed the tank? I need to take pics of my frags I intend to let grow into colonies in my 40, but the algae is embarrassing

 

[organism]

pretty much the same thing everyone else said, for me I use good flow, a fuge with chaeto for phosphate removal (no skimmer), and feeding certain foods... for the hair algae you may want to run some phosban and it'll clear it up, another thing that I've noted is that the frag plugs will leach phosphates into your system like it's going out of style. The best thing for growth for me was when I pushed two 400w 15k XM's right down on top of the tank, each one covers about 4'x3', those blasting halides and huge water movement made them take off to the point where I don't even feed much anymore. For my algae issues I use phosban and a scribbled rabbitfish, and only thoroughly cured frag plugs

 

[Chelsey]

Phosban's running If the 58 that is not yet set up I'm planning on using MH...that tank is going to be for my fragging colonies...I want to let things grow out in the 40 as much as possible.

 

[Azurel]

I only use inert frag plugs.....There are some clay ones that you can make that will not leach anything and I have seen some pre-made frag plugs now that are made of special matrial that are inert also so the don't leach stuff out....From what I can tell they have come along way(frag plugs). The most important I think is proper parameters and low nutriants actually. One must understand in the ocean the same water is never over a peticular spot for very long the corals are subjected to a large mass of water every few seconds to minutes, so low nitrates don't have to be zero but low as possiable and proper amounts of the good stuff like alk,mag,Ca.......Be carful with cyclop-eeze as a very little bit goes along way and with that stuff it is easy to over feed.....I have never actully seen zoanthids actually eat but know for sure Palys and protos do.....I tried the DTs oyster eggs and think I saw good results from that but I can't be concret as to that fact.

 

[epidemic]

Zoas love the 400K halides for sure. High light and high flow are a must. Something I do for fun is shut doen all the pumps and stir up any detrius I can findd (BB tank) I figure its already there, might as well make it available. That way you spread some food around for sps and zoas, once you turn your pump back on the crap is all suspended and goes to the fuge/skimmer(if you have one)

 

[epidemic]

Oh, If you want palys/protos to grow fast feed them mysis/cyclo.

 

[Stixbaraca]

My zoos prefer Neil Diamond tunes and the occasional night on the town actually!!!


My zoos and palys are just starting to come around again after upgrading the lights...but I swear when I started feeding DT's Oyster Eggs...they started going bonkers.

Another huge thing I believe is stability...meaning...find a spot for them and leave them alone...moving them around too much isn't good.

 

[familyreefer]

Jack Johnson

I agree with nutz... Jack Johnson and NO moving them!! I just discovered Jack and the trip back and forth from the University are much more tolerable now. I suggest everyone check him out. If a 40 year old bald guy can dig it......

 

[rottface4]

I agree I notice when I regularly feed my zoanthids grow like mad. I use coral vibrance and forzen cyclopeeze. My large polyps occansionally get things like mysis. I have even had one catch itself a lettuce nudi.

 

[Azurel]

I might try some Human growth hormone, I figure it worked for Bonds it should work for palys and zoas. The only problem might be keeping them in the tank.