Suggestions for Zoa Placement in Tank

[ashtoreth]

Hi,

I just started a tank recently (about 3 months in now from the start of the cycle) and am planning to begin adding a few beginner-friendly corals into my tank and wanted to see if folks had suggestions for where I should place my zoas? My tank is an IM 30L and I have one AI Prime 16hd light in the center mounted on a 12in arm. (I may ultimately get another and spread the two out equally across the tank but this is the current setup). For flow, I'm using random flow generator nozzles with the standard MightyJet return pump (it's enough flow even at the bottom that my firefish typically hides unless I turn the pump off). I can augment with a Tunze 6025 but haven't put that in just yet since it felt like my fish did not need it (have two clowns, one firefish and one cleaner shrimp).

The zoas I'm adding are alien eyes, watermelon, fire skirt, dragon eye, lunar eclipse (palys?) in case people have particular experiences with those. I was thinking of starting the zoas in the shaded regions (circled in green) and then ultimately moving them to the end areas circled in red but wanted to check in case people think that's too little light / flow? I was considering making either the left end section base a zoa garden eventually and keep that area low flow given my firefish seems too scared to venture out in stronger flow and his hole is there.

I also have a blasto and a duncan coming and wanted to know if I need to keep those away from the zoas? And do I risk any chemical warfare if I put the zoas too close to each other (I'm not running carbon since I haven't needed it but can if people think that's suggested)?

 

[DED65]

For the zoas start them off in the bottom of the tank and you can always move them up higher until they are happy with the light. I find that zoas grow nicely together, very peaceful and you don't need to worry about chemical warfare. I would leave a little room between the other corals, again start on the bottom of the tank and move as needed. I do run carbon, it will help with clearer water to help the light penetrate and remove organic compounds.

 

[ashtoreth]

For the zoas start them off in the bottom of the tank and you can always move them up higher until they are happy with the light. I find that zoas grow nicely together, very peaceful and you don't need to worry about chemical warfare. I would leave a little room between the other corals, again start on the bottom of the tank and move as needed. I do run carbon, it will help with clearer water to help the light penetrate and remove organic compounds.

Got it, thanks. Would you first place them completely in the shade or better to be in the sand with direct light?

 

[DED65]

I would place them in light and let them acclimate to it. And you are welcome!

 

[elysics]

Zoas don't grow in complete shade. If hey have too little light they'll get long stalks, if they get too much light, they will only be open at the beginning and end of the light period and closed in the middle. Just move them around only glued down lightly until you have found their final place.

Oh, and if you glue them to your main rock, be prepared for your tank to become a zoa tank. Or heavy annoying gardening work in a year or two. I'd designate one rock as the zoa rock and only put them there otherwise.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

My dragonseye are taking off and they’re in the middle of the tank directly beneath my light.

 

[littlebigreef]

@ashtoreth and important caveat here is the strains you're considering. All of these are hardy and tend to tolerate a wide range of water and lighting parameters (good choices).

The suggestions by other members are all spot on including considering long-term placement. All too often we put stuff where it might look good as a frag but, if it grows into a colony, might become problematic. Zoa 'rocks' planted on the bottom of the tank are easiest to maintain, that way you can take them out and trim, dip, frag as necessary.

Another dirty secret about zoa gardens is that many of the pics you find on google are actually frags or individual pieces all pushed together for the picture, then separated after. If you place them together on a rock zoas will grow through each other and compete for space with little regard for your's (or any of our's) aesthetic plans. You should keep 'like-sized' polyp strains together ie scrambed eggs and bam bams, hyper phoenix with blue lagoons, awesome blossoms with tweetie birds. That way you don't have smaller strains getting rolled by their bigger cousins.

Final note, zoas do like slightly elevated nitrates and phosphates. While your tank is cycled I wouldn't call it fully mature yet. I would strongly consider spot feeding your zoas, and really any of your corals, once a week with a reef-roids like product. Once your tank is fully stocked with fish and you've cultivated robust microfauna (pods, starfish, snails, worms, etc) this is less of a concern but for the time being you wanna make sure those corals aren't going hungry.

 

[ashtoreth]

Thanks. Yes, I did buy reef roids and plan to spot feed them (frequency TBD depending on how my parameters go / how the corals respond). My plan was to keep on separate rocks so I can remove and trim as needed but I don't really have smaller rocks so was originally planning to have them grow all over 1-2 large rocks that I have separate from the rest so I have a very multi-colored zoa garden rock. Based on the suggestions here though I'm wondering if I should port some to large frag plugs instead and let them grow out into small balls on bigger plugs (not sure if people have had success with them spreading on larger plugs vs. rock pieces)?

I'd still like a multicolored rock if possible so are there any good places to figure out polyp sizes for various strains? I currently have fire skirts, alien eyes, dragon eye, watermelon and lunar eclipse and they all look roughly the same size to me (but are still acclimating). I'm planning to add some more since there are a few colorations I really like (namely utter chaos, illuminati, god of war revolution, sunny d's) -- do any subset in particular strike you as ones I should keep apart from the others because they are likely to overgrow the others?