My 50G Zoa Dominated Tank

[MinibowMatt]

Well, As Mucho said, this forum needs new topics. Topics that are fun, and arent out for personal gain, so here is my take on a zoa tank.

My tank is currently 11mths old, its a custom GC acrylic tank with an external overflow, a closed loop through my eurobracing, and metal halide lighting. I believe I have about 150-175 pounds of mixed liverock, mostly Fiji and Tonga Slab rock. The Tank is mostly zoa dominated with a few SPS and LPS thrown in for good measure.

Over the last year I have experienced amazing growth from all my corals. I do not do anything special to my tank, I dont dose, I dont do regular waterchanges, and I dont put my hands in the tank on a daily basis. When I was designing this system, I wanted it to be as self sufficient as possible, which means overbuilding everything. My current equipment list is:

2x175w XM 20K on Advance core/coil ballasts.
2x75w VHO URI Actinic 03
ASM G3 Skimmer w/ Sedra 5000 NW recirc pump and Gate valve mod
29g refugium with a Grape caulerpa/ cheatomorpha mix, about 70# of my LR is in the fuge, as well as a 5" sandbed (southdown).
My refugium is lit with 4 standard (screw in) "daylight" 23w CF bulbs from Lowes, and a single 20W NO trichromatic bulb.
29g sump tank
Hanna PH meter/temp meter
Pinpoint Salinity meter
Floatswitches.net ATO system with a 25g reservoir fed with a MJ1200
Kent Maxxima 4 stage RO/DI filter
3 outlet closed loop with a Velocity T4 and OM squirt
Mag7 return pump
custom ATO/Kalk reactor/reservoir using Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime
Korallia 3 PH

When this tank was started I was running XM 15K and I was having EXPLOSIVE growth after about 4 months. That growth lasted for about 6 months, when I noticed a slowdown and color loss of my sps. This prompted a switch to new 20K bulbs. I like the color, but growth is definetly slowed down.

Some Zoa related things I have noticed:
Zoa frags do not do nearly as well as full colonies.
Shipped zoas do not do as well as LFS or locally attained colonies/frags do.
My zoas seem to LOVE the high, random flow in the tank. I have never had any of the "zoa pox" or other spreading diseases, but I have lost frags, due to attacks by Asterina stars, and too bright lighting (my fault).
I feel my lack of WC's has had a positive impact on my tank - all around. While I do not see much in the SPS polyp extension, the colors and growth are very vibrant in everything. I feel this, coupled with a very efficient refugium has kept my tank very healthy.
My skimmer would be considered by most as too large for my system, I disagree. I am overskimming, and pulling only about 1 full skimmer cup of green/brown (tea colored) skimmate in about 2 weeks.
My tank feeding regiment is very mild as well- I feed a homemade food only about twice a week, and it keeps all my critters hungry, which in turn keeps them picking at rocks and keeping my tank and rocks very clean. (no algae)
My Livestock is:
4 green chromis
1 Vanuatu Flame Angel (no he doesnt eat corals- I'm positive)
1 Royal Gramma
1 Lubbocks Fairy Wrasse
2 cleaner shrimp
a million blue leg hermits
half a million Cerith snails
1 small tiger tail cuke

Recently added another cuke, a sm. Emerald crab, and a tiny Decorator crab with 5 polyps on his shell!

I cant put my success on any one thing, but I will say that I planned this tank for 2 years before I built it. I planned EVERYTHING. I took my time setting it up, and I stocked it patiently. I did not overstock, I did not introduce anything that I wasnt sure I wanted in there for the long term. I also did not add any frags or corals that seemed unhealthy or possibly were infected with any of the fungus' or whatnot we see. I will say that i do not frag my zoas. I feel fragging only hurts the overall health of the colony. When they are crowding other corals, I let nature decide who is going to win. I dont interfere.

Some of my corals include:
about 50 zoa morphs
3 different Acro's
5 Monti caps
1 Monti Digi
3 Acan's
2 Leathers--- no more, as I fear these add a lot of "chemical warfare" chemicals into the tank, and can cause issues.
2-4 other LPS, Blasto's, Euphyllia sp. etc.
A few Mushrooms--discosoma and rhodactus

A pic from shortly after I started stocking (october 06)
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/minibowmatt/Coral%20Pics/DSCN1666-2.jpg

Now a more current pic
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/minibowmatt/Coral%20Pics/P6180268.jpg

[MUCHO REEF]

Hey thanks Matt, great details, you answered all of the questions I was going to ask. Nice looking setup BTW.

One question, could you elaborate on this a bit.

"I feel my lack of WC's has had a positive impact on my tank - all around"

I had a friend who did a water change about every 3 to 4 months, his growth was even faster than my own. I'm just not sure I want to risk stretch it out that long. Tell why you feel so strongly about doing this my friend.

Also, do you wanna share your homemade food brew?


Thanks for contributing, Mucho

[MinibowMatt]

Well, When I was doing regular waterchanges, I would lose a coral every couple weeks. Either zoa's would wither away, or get the fungus and die. Sometimes my SPS would RTN overnight. All my param's were good at these times, but I had recently done a WC. I use Reef Crystals and I mix it to 1.025. I couldnt be sure if the new salt with such strong concentrations of trace elements was burning away slime coats or what, but I theorized that the WC was a leading cause to my issues. When I slowed my WC's down (BTW- This was before this tank was built- I still had my MB7 nano) I started to have better success with my corals. When I started the new tank, I thought I would give it a try, I figured if I saw any result -good or bad- I could make an informed decision on whether or not to continue my lack or WC's. My results were explosive growth, stable water params, and ZERO algae growth. My Macro's in the fuge were growing like crazy- evidence there was nutrient in the water column, but not necessarily causing any bad issues.
I really think my current success is from the overbuilt system, the ridiculous growth rate on my macros in the fuge, and not overstocking the tank with fish. I have a very healthy cleaning crew as well. Basically, I was getting everything I wanted, so why change?
I guess it was the right combination of all factors involved. I am certainly not advocating the haphazard lack of waterchanges by the members, but if all the bases are covered, you can engineer the perfect biotope.

My home made food consists of:
Squid
Octopus
Table Shrimp
Mussels
Oysters
DT's phyto
Capilene Roe
Mysis
Brine
small amount of fresh fish (i used talapia)
Nori sheets
Garlic cloves
and Selcon
I mix it all together and Blend the hell out of it. I try to get it to a nice mush consistency with only small bite size chunks. I flat pack it in fish bags, and freeze it.
I only feed a "two finger" sized piece about twice a week. I think if I over feed this, it would quickly cause an algae problem. That is why i "keep my tank hungry".

[edwing206]

Tanks looks great! Love the mix of corals.

[Ursus]

Matt, I too noticed after a long spell of lazyness on my part and not sticking to my water change regime, all my corals exploded with growth. Eagle Eyes that had remained with 9 polyps when I got them 7 months ago turned into 18 in weeks.

Like you said, I think if you can balance it out, you can run a high nutrient system and avoid the bad things that go along with it.

[MinibowMatt]

I dont know if I would say I have a high nutrient system. If that was the case my SPS would surely die.
What I have, is an equilibrium. Basically everything I put into the system is consumed or removed within hours of its introduction, resulting in a low nutrient tank. I cannot measure ANY nutrient in the system (nitrate, phos).

[whitetiprs]

Nice looking tank

[drummereef]

Sweet tank. :thumbsup:

[Bebo77]

love it...

[Siffy]

Hey Matt, curious and wanted to ask a few questions.

Do you see a salinity decrease after an extended period of time without a waterchange? I'm wondering if the skimmer pulls out ANY salt and never seen any tests of it, but I've heard assumptions/guesses both ways.

Also, last time you checked, what were your tank parameters like? Like the ones in the sig above my post. :)

Thanks, great looking tank. I'm considering trying a 29g like this and throw a webcam on it once I have what I want in it and make a time lapse video several months down the road.

Would you recommend one of the "better" salt mixes (Tropic Marine Pro) for attempting this? Or stick to cheaper (Instant Ocean) brands?

[lfduty]

good looking tank

[MinibowMatt]

Thanx Everyone for the comments. I appreciate it!


Siffy-
I do see a salinity decrease over time. I think it is more due to salt creep on some of my poor plumbing connections though :)
I do add salt back when I see the salinity drop below 1.023 I have a meter, so I keep an eye on it.

My parameters 6/24 were:

Alk 9
Ca 460
PH 8.3
Ammonia 0
trite 0
Trate 0
Phos 0

I dont test magnesium... I dont think its necessary.

As for salt mixes- I have always felt that for systems 100g or less, Reef Crystals is one of the best out there. It has all the trace elements we want, and appropriate levels. I dose Kalk, but thats it.

If you have over 100G it doesnt pay to use any of the big name salts, as your going to be dosing anyway, so why pay more twice?

[skyhigh]

Great looking tank kept it up.

[Rackyrane]

Tank looks awesome. How did you get the zoos to grow on the tank wall?

[MinibowMatt]

That is mostly Briareum (encrusting gorgonian), but I just superglued them where I wanted... they did the rest....