My Zoas don't really grow

[StartingATank]

So, I am confused about some of my Zoas. So, I buy the Zoas or palys, and for the first month or so they start growing small heads and babies, and then those grow. But then what happens is that they just stop growing. They look great, except for just a few of my Zoas that I need to clean algae off of, but they don't grow. For example, I got a 1 polyp white zombie Zoa and for the first 2 months it grew 4 new heads, but then hasn't grown at all. I have a bob Marley Zoa that has about 8-10 polyps when I got it and for about 2 weeks it grew, then stopped, at about 13-15 polyps. They look great, but I am unsure of why they wont grow. All my other corals are growing great, my Octospawn has nearly doubled in size, my Branching GSP has also doubled in size, my leathers are growing nicely, my Candy Cane corals is somewhat growing, that was because of my fault, so it is recovering from damage, and my anemone is growing very large. I am just plain confused. I will attach pics in a minute or so. The new zoas or palys I have are the rainbow incinerators, the night crawlers, and the yellow paly that I can’t find an id on, so I call it a Chernobyl paly for fun

 

[dedragon]

parameters? they like a little bit dirtier water ime

 

[StartingATank]

Oh yeah sorry I forgot about that.
Right now I know me parameters are:
Phosphates - around .8-9. I’m trying to lower them right now. It is just slowly decreasing
Nitrates - around 20
Ammonia and Nitrites - 0
Salinity - 1.025
The rest I don’t know definitively right now and will test once I can.

 

[BriDroid]

How old is the tank? I couldn’t grow them for the first few months and now they won’t stop.

 

[StartingATank]

Tank is about 1 year old, got my first Zoa about 7-8 months ago, which is the orange Zoa at the bottom of the second picture, and the only difference between now and then is that the colors are more bright on the Zoas now, but they haven't grown since I got them

 

[Staghorn]

I’ve definitely found that feeding and good flow helps, I move some recently into stronger flow and they are taking off

 

[StartingATank]

I may be wrong but I am pretty sure I have some strongish flow there, but the problem is the shape of the rock, some zoas don’t have really any flow and some have good flow. The night crawler zoas I think will grow nicely as they have flow hitting them, but the snitches and firecrackers zoas are kind of in a dead spot, so that might have it why the don’t grow. Do you think I should take the zoas off, flip the rock over, because i think it is pretty flat on the other side, and reglue them down? I have a Midas blenny living in the kind of cave in the rock, so would that cause a problem?

 

[Staghorn]

Maybe see if you can get some flow to them without changing the rock work. Are they on a plug or small rock you can move to another place?

 

[TheNative192]

So, I am confused about some of my Zoas. So, I buy the Zoas or palys, and for the first month or so they start growing small heads and babies, and then those grow. But then what happens is that they just stop growing. They look great, except for just a few of my Zoas that I need to clean algae off of, but they don't grow. For example, I got a 1 polyp white zombie Zoa and for the first 2 months it grew 4 new heads, but then hasn't grown at all. I have a bob Marley Zoa that has about 8-10 polyps when I got it and for about 2 weeks it grew, then stopped, at about 13-15 polyps. They look great, but I am unsure of why they wont grow. All my other corals are growing great, my Octospawn has nearly doubled in size, my Branching GSP has also doubled in size, my leathers are growing nicely, my Candy Cane corals is somewhat growing, that was because of my fault, so it is recovering from damage, and my anemone is growing very large. I am just plain confused. I will attach pics in a minute or so. The new zoas or palys I have are the rainbow incinerators, the night crawlers, and the yellow paly that I can’t find an id on, so I call it a Chernobyl paly for fun

Sounds like you have a lot of fast growing soft corals and the Iodine in the system is likely low. Are you consistent with water changes. An ICP test likely will show very low Iodine and trace elements which soft corals use to grow.

 

[StartingATank]

I haven’t been too consistent with my water changes. I try to but sometimes I forget to do it. I will do one tomorrow as it is pretty late to start one now. I am also wondering if the lights are too low, I believe I am keeping the corals at about 80-100 par.

 

[acroholicanonymous]

My secret to growing zoas is to ignore them and pretend that I care more about acros.

 

[StartingATank]

Maybe see if you can get some flow to them without changing the rock work. Are they on a plug or small rock you can move to another place?

They are on a plug, but I don’t really have anywhere else to put them securely. My tanks water movement is like a water cyclone in a way. I will move the zoas that are in the dead spots to somewhere, I just need to figure out where

 

[StartingATank]

My secret to growing zoas is to ignore them and pretend that I care more about acros.

So far I have been doing this, but with scolies and acans. Would that work.

 

[JoJosReef]

My secret to growing zoas is to ignore them and pretend that I care more about acros.

This right here. Think we can wrap up this thread now.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

How is the lighting? Do your other corals grow new polyps or spread across the rocks? A one year old tank should have plenty of growth but your pictures show all frags, have they never grown off the frag plug? What is your lighting like? On the second picture I do see those pallys standing tall, I’m wondering if this is a lighting issue.

 

[acroholicanonymous]

My secret to growing zoas is to ignore them and pretend that I care more about acros.

So far I have been doing this, but with scolies and acans. Would that work.

Yes - just be sure not to make eye to polyp contact. If you do, then it’s game over.

 

[StartingATank]

How is the lighting? Do your other corals grow new polyps or spread across the rocks? A one year old tank should have plenty of growth but your pictures show all frags, have they never grown off the frag plug? What is your lighting like? On the second picture I do see those pallys standing tall, I’m wondering if this is a lighting issue.

It could be, but in one of the pictures, I have some zoas that are higher up in the water column, either the third or fourth pic, and those also haven’t really grow at all. I also have noticed in my tank that the small polyp zoas have not grown at all, while large polyps have grown a few new heads.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It can be to too much light or water flow, sudden change of parameters and even use of vodka or carbon dosing that reduces nitrate quickly. Assure salinity and Phos has not become elevated.
This is NOT a light issue although most zoa favor low light. Often a simple dip in Lugols iodine can perk them up. There are a number of factors why zoas grow slowly especially involving water movement/flow as zoas do not require the consistent high flow conditions that SPS corals do. I would consider running moderate flow which is ideal but Zoa can adapt to low or high flow. In high flow, you will typically see polyps grow closer to the rock with shorter stalks.
Another is lack of feeding and food as infrequent feeding and low nutrients can lead to an entire colony melting down. You dont need to target feed as zoas are photosynthetic. It is generally found that target feeding zoas always provides mixed results when a food falls onto their polyps.

 

[StartingATank]

Ok, my full numbers list:
Alk - 10.1 dkh
Mag - 1280 ppm
Calc - 440 ppm
Nitrates - 19.8 ppm
Phosphates - .91 ppm
Salinity - 1.025 ppt
Nitrites and Ammonia - 0

 

[jpmazzone]

I know I am late to the conversation but, here is my two cents. I've found that my corals tend to grow in spurts. I think that as colonies grow, they pull nutrients out of the system and then the coral has to kind of reset. Once it acclimates, it starts to grow again. I think the worst thing you can do is start changing a bunch of things quickly in your tank. Everything looks happy. I would just keep doing what you are doing. Stay the course and be patient.