Tricks for growing out zoa frags

[Baldy]

Hi All.

Wondering if anyone has any tips for growing out zoa frags. seems like more than half of the frags i buy end up melting. in the last couple weeks, ive bought 5 different frags of zoas. out of them, 2 are holding ok, 2 are melting slowly but steadily, and 1 melted away pretty quick. on top of that, ive got 3 other frags that i put in a long time ago that melted until they were almost gone, and are now holding. not really growing any bigger, just holding at like 3-5 heads. one of them is showing some promise, it had 2 heads for months and now just started sprouting 2 more. the one frag of dragon eyes i bought with around 30 heads half melted when i put it in, then took off. ive got 2 larger colonies from it now, but thats the only one thats taken off.

anything i can do to stop this meltdown when first introduced? theres no spiders or zoa pox that i can see, ive been keeping an eye out for those pretty closely.

[HaZRaTTy]

Hey curious how youre aclimating them to your system? What is your system does the Temp swing? I assume all your water is tested and right where it needs to be?

[The Grizz]

Zoas will melt at any point, its weird. What I do with zoa frags no matter where or who they come from is give them a dip in ReVive Coral Cleaner. Acclimate the frags to your water properly. Then once they are in the tank make sure the flow is not to high on them & dont touch them or move them, the more you move them the less they like to grow.

[Baldy]

water params are good. 0 nitrates, 0.03 phos, 430 clac, 8 alk, 1300 mg, 1.025sg, 79C temp. no swings in temp, pH makes a daily trip from 7.8-7.9 in the morning to 8.0 in the pm. i have chaeto in the sump on a reverse light cycle so im not sure how else to stop that from happening.

i drip acclimate for about an hour. ive just recently started using revive as well, and the 1 zoa frag ive used that on is holding ok.

[Mike-fish]

Same as above with acclamation. Lighting?

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by TheNewGuy

water params are good. 0 nitrates, 0.03 phos, 430 clac, 8 alk, 1300 mg, 1.025sg, 79C temp. no swings in temp, pH makes a daily trip from 7.8-7.9 in the morning to 8.0 in the pm. i have chaeto in the sump on a reverse light cycle so im not sure how else to stop that from happening.

i drip acclimate for about an hour. ive just recently started using revive as well, and the 1 zoa frag ive used that on is holding ok.

look into your lights i bet thats your issue, acclimate all you like for water conditions but if they dont acclimate to the lights they melt in no time , since your other pieces melted slightly then kept a few polyps i can guarantee its the lights .

another one is steady alk......its another big cause of melting zoos.

last but not least is fungus or bacteria.....these youll need to dip for.

[Baldy]

i have a diy led setup thats dimmable down to 20%. full bore the corals dont seem to like it very much so i run it at 80%. i usually drop it to half of what im running when i first introduce and then bring it back up over a week. do you think this is too quick?

[BlueWorldAquatic]

We don't acclimate our frags when they arrive. This is due to lower temps due to them being shipped overnight. But we do use revive as a dip for them just to help the along.

Also a feeding 30 minutes after adding them doesn't hurt either

You have to remember they like slightly dirtier water.

[Baldy]

what do you feed your zoas at the store? ive mostly used a homemade blender mush but recently started trying coral frenzy as well.

as far as dirtier water, my chaeto sucks up everything really quick =)

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Live phyto and rotifers, if you look at any coral food you will see the first ingredient to be phyto.

Live phyto works wonders I find, stays in the wAter column for a little time too .