Like I said im new to the hobby so I just followed the directions my local aquarium store gave me. They did not tell me anything regarding removing the zoa from the plug, I have the plug glued to the rock. Again I glued it to the rock because that's what I was told to do. They looked beautiful yesterday, they were fully open all day, but today not at all. I'm thinking it might be my light settings so I turned down the intensity a little bit, but they have not changed.
my light settings are 80% cyan, 80% blue, 80% blue, 30% white, and that is for 7-8 hours a day
Would you say based on the picture that they're reaching for more light?
I'm not going to lie I have not tested my water because my local store told me that if the zoas opened up when I put them in the tank, that means my parameters are fine and there's no need to test. I did find a thread on here that said the zoas close because they've absorbed enough light for the day. So I lowered down the white levels and left the blues a litte low.
welcome to R2R.New to this hobby, I have new zoanthids that were fully open for like 3 days. For the past 2 days they only open up a tiny bit. Can anyone give any advice on what to do? Below you'll see the pictures of them open and the pictures of them today. The light I have is the fluval nano marine 3.0. Maybe I don't have my light settings correctly? I have a 10 gallon innovative marine tank.
yes it is, its been running with the fish for about 3 weeks.
Okay… I think your local store is telling you things that are not right. Zoas are a little bit like the canary in the coal mine and they’re great corals that will let you know if there’s something wrong by not opening but this is in established tanks where you have parameters dialed in. Getting your water tested is super important especially early on and may help us help you if anything negative is indeed going on.
I'm going to get my water tested tomorrow. Just to verify since it seems like my local store isn't giving great advice. They recommended I pour in 2.5 ml's of the seachem aquavitro fuel twice a week for the zoas, they told me that would serve as their source of food and it'll give them nicer purer colors and help them grow. Is that true? I've seen online that zoas don't necessarily need that. Can you please confirm if that is correct?
yeah, you need some nutrients in there. you didn't make it to the ugly stages of algae yet. everything is still adjusting.
Yes I definitely will be conducting water tests more often.
Whether you need the aquavitro will largely depend on where your parameters sit right now. Get your water tested and let us know what the results look like and then there’s tons of help and advice we’ll be able to provide. Also, how are you measuring salinity in your tank. This is the first parameter that you should always know to be able to keep your corals healthy.
Turns out my salinity was a bit high and so was my phosphate. Salinity was at 1.027, and phosphate was at 0.8. I was given something called Rowa Phos, and put it one of the chambers in the back and hopefully that brings the levels down.
