Zoanthid growth theory???

i was wondering if i bought a large colony of zoo's prefebly 50-60 polyps r they going to grow faste???

 

It depends on many things, what type of zoas? Some grow fast some slow. Tank conditions play a big role too. So it is hard to say.

 

They don't share nutrients. Each polyp is a single animal so having more of them does not cause them to grow faster. Also, as Pgoodsell mentioned, some species of zoanthids grow faster than others.

 

do you guys no what type of them grow fast?

 

Zoanthid coral grows in a colony, which means a bottom mat connects many tubules. So if you feed one and you have multiple polyps then youre feeding them all.

Ive heard my LFS owner use pellet food to feed his zoa's - Im sure feeding it anything will help it grow more.


Ive had a lot of luck growing Eagle Eye's - Buy Eagle Eye Zoanthids Online | Vivid Aquariums - They seem to just multiple every week.

 

dude, this is like your fourth thread on how fast zoas grow, not to mention clove polyps, xenia, and gsp threads. what's the rush? IMO you'd enjoy the hobby more if you just sit back and let the tank do its thing

to answer your question, i suppose having a large colony will produce more zoas faster in the sense that you have more multiplying at the same time (i.e. if 1 zoa produces 1 zoa in a week you would have 2 zoas. if you have 2 of the same zoa then in a week you will have 4 zoas). however having a number of zoas wont make the singular zoa reproduce faster if that's what your asking. however, when you have a larger colony, i dont know what the zoas in the middle do once they are surrounded, i only see growth around the edge of my colonies.

also, i know Curt will scold me for saying this, but in my experience my softies grow faster when i have "dirty" water. i'm not telling you to foul up your water by over feeding, but since i've been regularly hitting 0s across the board on my parameters, my SPS has taken off and my zoas have slowed WAY down. just my observations

 

LOL....no I won't. There's are lot of different ways of eating. A major source of Carbon they need from growth comes from Dissolved Organic Compounds (DOC's). As a result, if you're running granular activated carbon or other chemical media like Purigen and you're skimming heavily, you're going to need to feed zoanthids. Other species, prefer Particulate Organic Matter/Compounds (POM/POC's). You can pretty much infer what the different species eat by the size of the mouth and the length of the polyp's tentacles. For instance a parazoanthus has very long tentacles and is great at capturing detritus and other foods floating in the water column (POC's). Zoanthids have a very small mouth and very short tentacles and primarily absord DOC's. Palythoa and Protopalythoa have large oral disks large mouths and can eat frozen brine and mysid shrimp. If you put mysid shrimp on a zoanthus colony, it would just sit there and rot.

Here's some basics;

In the Zoanthidae Family, there are several Genera (plural for Genus). Within the various Genus, there are numerous Species

Zoanthus,
Palythoa,
Protopalythoa,
Isaurus,
Sphenopus,
Parazoanthus,
Epizoanthus,
Acrozoanthus

Palythoa are often called sea mats because they are all attached at the "foot". Protopalythoa look just like Palythoa but their "feet" are not attached. Both palythoa and protopalythoa will use sand and other trash they find around the reef in their bodies. They share nutrients.

Isaurus are commonly called snake corals. Their mouths are small and their tentacles are small. They primarily feed off of DOC's.

Parazoanthus are most commonly in the hobby called yellow polyps. My favorites species of parazoanthus are white polyps.....really cool looking

Epizoanthus are usually nuked by hobbyists who are convinced that they have a patch of aiptasia

Acrozoanthus are basically zoanthus on a stick.

 

yeah ino hahahhah im not the most patiant guy in the world lol!!!!! and i am just having thoughts but ive heared some people tell me that they dooo and ive had 3 polyps for 5 months and i havnt seen noooooo growht out of them at all so im jsut getting kinda anxius