Zoa garden: how to control growth of the each kind? Planning stage

[dk2nt9]

I am at a planning stage of zoa garden. So far many kinds are on frag racks and fast growing colonies are on small individual rocks. Some of them filled their 2" rocks, adding more rock will lead to endless expansion.

What to do next: found recommendations say to keep them of tiles or individual rocks on the sand, staying away from main rock structure. But I would like to keep them at different heights and fairly close to each other. How this is usually done?

Maybe super glue small rocks with each of them together, creating additional rubble layer over main rock structure, removable for fragging (cutting off ends of the colony, I guess) and returning reduced colony back?

Surrounding each individual colony rock by rubble rock, for colony expansion, and breaking them off once they are filled, will take too much space, tanks is not big. If let them grow over each other, this looks odd and one kind may take over another. Keeping small separate colonies should look better and more manageable.

 

[Timfish]

Best way would be to design your aquascaping aith lots of rock that can be easily removed when the zoaas grow over them. One option is to scrap them off when they get "out of bounds".

 

[Hooz]

It's hard to judge how different ones will grow in your tank until you actually have them in your tank.

I used Ocean Wonders frag stations to make a few zoa gardens, but it becomes a battle of trimming them back. This garden actually has 10 types of zoas on it, but you can see that 3 main types are taking over.

I need to do some fragging!

I'm thinking about redoing my gardens and just using frag domes for each different one. Then I can arrange/rearrange/frag each type as needed. I'm not a fan of the flat growout tiles for a display, but I think the domes would add some depth and texture without looking too artificial.

I also have several types of zoas that I glued to my rockwork. I left them each ample room to grow into nice colonies, as I don't have plans to frag them anytime soon.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Great thread topic!!

 

[dk2nt9]

Thank you, will use individual domes for now. If there are any other ways, please add to the list, it could be useful for others too.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I am at a planning stage of zoa garden. So far many kinds are on frag racks and fast growing colonies are on small individual rocks. Some of them filled their 2" rocks, adding more rock will lead to endless expansion.

What to do next: found recommendations say to keep them of tiles or individual rocks on the sand, staying away from main rock structure. But I would like to keep them at different heights and fairly close to each other. How this is usually done?

Maybe super glue small rocks with each of them together, creating additional rubble layer over main rock structure, removable for fragging (cutting off ends of the colony, I guess) and returning reduced colony back?

Surrounding each individual colony rock by rubble rock, for colony expansion, and breaking them off once they are filled, will take too much space, tanks is not big. If let them grow over each other, this looks odd and one kind may take over another. Keeping small separate colonies should look better and more manageable.

I have most of mine on one huge rock. I drilled holes and started each using a frag plug of several heads. When they get too out of control I pull the plug which usually brings several heads off the rock along with it. Then I make frags to sell. Then you can just replace the plug with the same type of zoa to let them regrow of a different variety that may be lacking in your garden.