Zoas.

[animalman]

OK. I'm planning for the future. Looking to get some zoas in my tank, not sure which ones yet. But as I'm reading it seems I get mixed signals as to what to feed them. I read don't feed just good light. Then I read to spot feed. Then I read that it depends on the zoas. Then I read that the longer and thinner the tentacles, the greater role feeding plays and non-feeders have short stubby ones. So what do you guys do. Feed or no feed?

[salty420]

i don't feed my zoas. just good 'ol bright lighting :)

[Subliminal]

Every now and again I feed my whole tank with some kind of coral food, but feedings zoas by themselves...never. And I have about 10-15 different varieties.

[Sploke]

Someone told me to feed phytoplankton or something, can't remember the exact name of what I had...but I did it for about 2 months and didn't notice any marked difference in growth, so I'm not buying another bottle. Light it is.

[Sploke]

Rotifers, thats what it was.

[Subliminal]

You've got to be careful with coral foods, too, as they will pollute your tank like nobody's business if you overfeed.

[cav]

Someone told me to feed phytoplankton or something, can't remember the exact name of what I had...but I did it for about 2 months and didn't notice any marked difference in growth, so I'm not buying another bottle. Light it is.

I dose my tank with around 5ml of phyto every 2 days and ocean nutrition coral food once a week, I have mainly softies(zoas/shrooms/greenstars/xenia/toadstool/leathers) and one frag of candy cane(looking at getting some more LPS soon), they all seem to love it. The phyto seems to help the pod poplulation as well I see quite a few scurrying around on rocks/sand which hopefully keeps my fish/shrimps happy

[Grins]

You've got to be careful with coral foods, too, as they will pollute your tank like nobody's business if you overfeed.

Agreed. I only add fine coral food like that maybe 1x a week and it doesn't come from a bottle. Most of the time the corals (including zoas) grab food I feed the fish.

[andy1130]

Ive kept several species of zoanthids and parazoanthids without feeding and had no problems with the exception of parazoanthus gracilis - a long tentacled yellow variety which after a few weeks started to decline until I began feeding them brine shrimp once a week or so. I just loaded the brine into a turkey baster and squirted them across the colony. The gracilis came back quickly after i started feeding them and as an after thought I started feeding some of my other zoanthid colonies brine as well, they ate the brine so i continued to feed them about every other week for several months until i moved and had to give up the tank. Never really had a chance to see how it affected their growth but it never seemed to hurt and the fish would pick up any of the extra brine shrimp the zoas didnt get.

[animalman]

So I wouldn't have to feed the zoas. Just good light. Well I got the light covered. 150watt MH light. Maybe once or twice a month a quick dose couldn't hurt. Thanx to all:)