Zoaholics! Lend me your experience

I got mine under 4 t5's and they are growing like crazy.
Different rates obviously, different specimens are collected from different areas and levels so when we stick them in all the same spot, not all will grow as efficiently. But i do find mine do well with strong flow and slightly dirtier water, i had them in my cleaner tank with sps and they didn't have this fast growth so slightly higher nitrates i found helps mine at least.

*Also always check for zoa eating nudis and bugs which could be stunting growth.

 

Zoa nudis make a huge impact on growth rate. In some cases the coral is simply trying to survive and wont grow at all. I dipped a frag of mine today and pulled of a couple nudis. They are never a good thing to find but dipping your zoa colonies when added can pretty easily wipe them out.

Personally, Ive had frags that under good conditions have grown a couple heads in a year. But then Ive also had frags that even in less than desirable conditions spread like the plague. It really depends on the type of zoanthid. Lighting is a huge factor as well.

 

My nuclear green palys seem to have a pretty substantial growth rate. I bought one - one inch sized frag with about 8 good sized heads and have already fragged 2-3 heads off it monthly. I frag a couple heads off when its about to grow down over the side of the frag disk. Each time the new frag has in turn grown to about 8 heads on each frag. They seem to double about every month & half. Just to test I have a frag in the upper part of the tank, one on the frag rack mid way down on the side, and one frag on the bottom. All are in mid flow & under 4 x T-5's in a 75g. They grow about as fast as my yellow polyps.

I would have to guess I dont have the highest of pristine water though. All of my zoa's and poylps grow pretty good. I dont even count my GPS or xenia since they grow like GSP or xenia does, lol. My chalices & especially hollywood stunner get good growth. I only have a couple SPS though. My birdsnest grows fast enough I have to stay on it or it will intertwine & even started to choke itself out underneath. I have a few other SPS and while they do grow it isnt nothing to write home about.

Next time I make a frag of the NG's I am gonna drop it in my mantis tank & see what kinda of growth I get under the 6700k lights on it. While that lighting dont make fo rhte most colorful corals, it does make for some good grow on the leather, xenia & zoas in there.

 

update

After having metal Halides then t5s, and now LEDs, my zoas seem to like the LEDs best, I have one frag bought 4 months (or so) ago with about 10 heads, I have fragged it twice in the past 2 months, with about 6 frags of 10 each time, I still have about 60-80 atm of this particular type
also one Pollicopora (spelling) I bought a 1 inch frag 1 1/2 months ago, now nearly 3" in size, I believe this to be a testimonial to the power of LEDs in comparison to T5s/MH

Happy reefing everyone

 

Depends on the species, I have 10 different species in my tank and some grow 1-3 polyps per month and some grow 1-3 polyps per week, it all depends on the species. Also with Zoa's it seems like they grow slow until they reach the 20 polyp size and then they just take off. Also It depends on location in your tank, I have some that prefer to be 6"from the surface and some that like to be on the sandbed, I run metal halide lights so the ones that really like the light do well in my tank. I have also had some just melt away for no specific reason.