My OPE growth pics month 1

[Randy]

I know that mine are not the same as the ones on zoaid but that is what I call them.with that being said:

I have had a colony of these for a few years that sat on the bottom of my frag tank and never even looked at them really they was just some funky looking paly IMO. I moved some rocks out of the way last month and went WOW look at that they have grown so much.I decited to to move the colony to my SPS tank and place them on the sand bed in June. while I was doing that I fraged 5 polyps and left them under my VHO lighting in my zoa prop tank.I also fraged 6 polyps and placed them in my SPS tank with almost 900 w of mh and VHO. Two of the polyps died that went in to my SPS tank. I guess they did not like the super glue only 4 lived and now, July I have the 4 + 5 new polyps.The bad news is that the 5 polyps in my zoa system are still at 5 and don't have as much color on them. I think I will order some new MH for the prop tank in a few weeks. Anyway here is the pictures.

JUNE with out flash

July with flash They look like they have more specks with flash.

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Wow, that's a big difference in growth between the tanks! Which is interesting because most SPS tanks have high flow, right? My impression was that most people thought high flow might inhibit zoa gorwth, but your results challenge that. ANy idea for why other than the need for new lighting in the one tank? Had you just replaced the lights in the SPS tank?

Nice zoas, too...

Laurie

 

[Randy]

The lighting in my zoa prop system is about a year old and only 220 w of light compaired to the sps at 900w. I don't have much flow in the zoa tank per the same reason you stated, but the sps tank is heavy flow and the lights are 6 months old.

Here is one other thing the zoa tank has no skimmer and like most zoa tanks high in nutrients. The sps tank has low nutrients and is heavly skimmed.This goes against alot that I read about growing zoas also.

 

[jessiesgrrl]

You know, that's extremely interesting.

Given the usual "common knowledge", it will be really interesting to see if the growth ratio between the tanks holds steady over a period of say, 3 months.

IMO, 3 months would be enough to rule out fragging trauma (and other associated variables from the move) as a reason for difference (Especially given that a few were lost in the SPS tank itself), especially if it is a stable month to month rate. At that point, I think you really have soemthing here, if not already.

Keep us posted!

Laurie

 

[Randy]

I guess I should have picked up the frag in my zoa tank Because there is 2 new polyps starting to push there little heads out under 1 polyp. This still is not as fast of growth as with the other system.I will post more as things change.I hope to add some MH to the prop tank and that will void everything so far.

 

[surfn]

IMO i dont think they are "people eaters". in order to be "people eaters" they have to clearly have a green slit mouth, without question.

those to me look like the same species as the "lunar eclipse palys", and ones like it.

there are other morphs out there that have yellow slit mouths, orange slit mouths, and white/yellow slit mouths. but in order to be a "people eater" its gota have a BRIGHT green mouth, so as by looking at it there is no question that it is a bright green slit mouth.

JMO though. call them whatever you wish, just expect criticism if you tried to sell them as such (hope that helps)

 

[Randy]

As stated that is what I call them. Don't get hung up on the name I was just showing the progress that they have had.They have a yellow/ green mouth under 10 k xm's what the will look like under other lights I don't know. I have some lunar eclipse palys and they are not the same thing. You need to keep in mind that this colony was keeped in a frag tank under vho and in the back under indirect light for years.I have only had them under good lighting for a few months and every week they get brighter skirts and the mouths are starting to get some color.I have sold some but after watching them change so much in the past few weeks I will wait till they get to where they need to be before I sell any more.

thanks for the input

 

[JGoslee]

Your sps tank sounds alot like my tank.My 58gal has alot of light(2-250watt de) alot of flow (2-tunze6000) and overskimmed( deltec ap600). Hopfully the fast growth will keep up. I just started adding zoos to my tank a few months ago. The growth has been pretty good. A few poylps a month is about the norm for my tank.

-Jesse

 

[Randy]

mid August up date pics under MH.They are starting to change alot in the past few weeks.I moved them to the top of the tank and all I can say is wow!!!