What other Zoas should I add to my Zoa garden?

Ocean’s Piece

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I have 4 zoas in my zoa garden right now. All of them are very new and I want to get a few more before they start growing like crazy. I want to have it where I don’t have too much or too little of one color and make it as colorful and vibrant as possible. I feel I need more zoas that are mostly comprised of Reds, greens, light blue, purple, and pink. I want your average corals. No $100 a polyp frags. Could anyone recommend any zoas? These are the following zoas I have:
C6DB845D-0649-4A83-A808-EE5DB7AB8022.jpeg

Sunny Ds
40490F94-FE87-4AD0-9281-4EE35B020B6F.jpeg

Bowsers
6D44FC16-FF5A-478E-A627-44423186EE74.jpeg

Illuminatis
F6D27DE1-E966-4F60-99BE-29DCDE21571A.jpeg

Gatorades
 

ZoWhat

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You're not going to like my answer.

How old is your tank?

I'd "master" the ones you already have by getting the lighting, flow and water parameters set before loading up on your dream zoa garden

IMO big mistake loading up on a particular coral until you've proven to yourself lighting, flow and water quality supports that coral... unless you wanna blow a bunch of money into the trashcan.

.
 
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Ocean’s Piece

Ocean’s Piece

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You're not going to like my answer.

How old is your tank?

I'd "master" the ones you already have by getting the lighting, flow and water parameters set before loading up on your dream zoa garden

.
I like your answer. Probably what I should do. Tank is 5 months old
 
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Ocean’s Piece

Ocean’s Piece

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Master the ones you got. If overgrowth, you can always trim back by surgically putting kalk-paste or AiptasiaX on the areas you don't want the growth
Alright. How long should I wait month wise/how many times bigger the colonies have gotten wise? And would you recommend any while you’re here?
 

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If you start seeing 1-2 extra polyps a month, your going in the right direction.

Zoas are kinda funny. They'll populate a area sorta quick, then slow way down to almost no growth.
 

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Watch for the zoas to leave the plug that they came on. That's your first indication that they're starting to do well. This won't be the same rate for all corals, and some zoas won't like your tank for whatever reason.

Here's a few different shots of my quasi-zoa garden, each taken about a month apart. In the first picture, I had just recently added the WWC Aoi zoas (the blue ones in the back, next to the red acan) and the little green ones in the bottom-right. The pink and green ones were added a little bit earlier... but as you'll notice over time, those ones ended up just fading out and vanishing.

The Aois and the green ones, meanwhile, add polyps steadily every month. The Aois started with about 4 polyps. Added 3 in the first month, about 6 the second month, until now I have about 30 polyps worth. Same thing with those little green guys. You'll also sometimes see a pink-polyped zoa; those started with about 5 polyps and stayed there for months, then all of a sudden they picked up steam and are now spreading down the rock that they're on.

When you see consistent growth like that, then you can be pretty confident that the zoas like their little spot and you can probably add some more. In terms of which morphs to look for... other than Aois, I don't really pay much attention to the names of them. I just go onto my favorite vendors, sort by price, and look for what shows up in my price range (for Zoas, I usually don't want to pay more than $60/frag, with a 'frag' of Zoas containing 3-10 polyps). There are so many good morphs of Zoas that it's not really worth it to look by name; you can probably find something that'll look good at any price level from $2/polyp to $100/polyp and beyond.
1st.jpg
2nd.jpg
3rd.jpg
4th.jpg
5th.jpg
 
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Ocean’s Piece

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Watch for the zoas to leave the plug that they came on. That's your first indication that they're starting to do well. This won't be the same rate for all corals, and some zoas won't like your tank for whatever reason.

Here's a few different shots of my quasi-zoa garden, each taken about a month apart. In the first picture, I had just recently added the WWC Aoi zoas (the blue ones in the back, next to the red acan) and the little green ones in the bottom-right. The pink and green ones were added a little bit earlier... but as you'll notice over time, those ones ended up just fading out and vanishing.

The Aois and the green ones, meanwhile, add polyps steadily every month. The Aois started with about 4 polyps. Added 3 in the first month, about 6 the second month, until now I have about 30 polyps worth. Same thing with those little green guys. You'll also sometimes see a pink-polyped zoa; those started with about 5 polyps and stayed there for months, then all of a sudden they picked up steam and are now spreading down the rock that they're on.

When you see consistent growth like that, then you can be pretty confident that the zoas like their little spot and you can probably add some more. In terms of which morphs to look for... other than Aois, I don't really pay much attention to the names of them. I just go onto my favorite vendors, sort by price, and look for what shows up in my price range (for Zoas, I usually don't want to pay more than $60/frag, with a 'frag' of Zoas containing 3-10 polyps). There are so many good morphs of Zoas that it's not really worth it to look by name; you can probably find something that'll look good at any price level from $2/polyp to $100/polyp and beyond.
1st.jpg
2nd.jpg
3rd.jpg
4th.jpg
5th.jpg
Yeah I’m the same way with costs. My LFS has a $45/frag section and a $100+/frag section. I’ll never buy anything in that expensive section because there’s so many different morphs and options you can choose from that are in the cheaper section. I know you said you don’t pay attention to names but I just wanted to see if you knew the name of one of them
Which one is this one?
FF4D2A3F-4DB1-4B86-920A-DD2D2412291F.jpeg
 

Biokabe

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Pink Panther or Pink Pucker... something like that. =) I'll dig through my order histories and see if I can find it, I think I got it from Pacific East Aquaculture.
 

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Sup man i have a 11 month old first tank. And since everyone does their tank and dosing different everyones answer will be different. All the above sound good too. Are zoas all you have?And how long have those frags been sitting in that same spot? I see new growth and they look nice so id say your doing it. Id say the only thjing i dont see is coraline.
Also like you i wanna have a garden. Ive been reading alot one type of zoa will take over the other ones around it. Using other corals to break them up, very similar to the picture above is what i think im going to look more at.
 
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Sup man i have a 11 month old first tank. And since everyone does their tank and dosing different everyones answer will be different. All the above sound good too. Are zoas all you have?And how long have those frags been sitting in that same spot? I see new growth and they look nice so id say your doing it. Id say the only thjing i dont see is coraline.
Also like you i wanna have a garden. Ive been reading alot one type of zoa will take over the other ones around it. Using other corals to break them up, very similar to the picture above is what i think im going to look more at.
Zoas are all I have right now. Just got them this week. I had no plan of getting more in June but maybe in the following months. I still have to see how everything does. I’m having a coraline issue right now. I’m growing a ton of it but it isn’t pink coralline. It’s green coraline. This is my back wall of my aquarium.
1BFE8C2F-C39A-4EFB-99F8-8165D311745A.jpeg

Started with live rock and a month ago, I added some more rock but it was dry. Coraline started growing on back wall before that though. I’m really upset about it and I haven’t found anyone who has had this experience.
 

Biokabe

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Pink Panther or Pink Pucker... something like that. =) I'll dig through my order histories and see if I can find it, I think I got it from Pacific East Aquaculture.
Found it for you, they were Pink Zonkers from Pac East, got them at the end of August. They don't have any listed at the moment, but they've had similar things in the past. They're usually pretty good for zoas.
 

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Utter Chaos, Rastas and Rainbow Incinerators are three I'd have if I could only have three. All reasonably priced.
 

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