- Add just a pop of color to your tank
or cover up your entire aquascape.
Zoanthid gardens are perfect for a nano tank because,
number one, they come in almost every color imaginable.
Number two, they can grow really quickly.
And number three, as long as you stay away
from certain designer models,
they can be really affordable.
So let's jump right in,
and we're gonna show you how to build a zoa garden.
We can't discuss zoanthids without a palytoxin warning.
Palytoxin is an extremely dangerous poison
that can live within the soft tissues of zoanthids.
Although more associated with palythoas,
certain zoanthids can also contain palytoxin.
Palytoxin is no joke, as it can actually kill a human being.
It becomes dangerous to humans
when it somehow becomes airborne,
usually through trying to scrub your rock,
boiling live rock,
or fragging zoanthids and palythoas.
But all of that being said,
zoanthids pose very little to zero danger to humans
when just living and growing
inside your salt water aquarium.
Still, I would always wear gloves, goggles, and a face mask
every time you're handling zoanthids.
There are hundreds of species of zoanthids out there,
and they come in every color imaginable
and some you might not even be able to imagine,
but they vary somewhat wildly in their polyp size
and rate of growth.
The vast majority of zoanthids featured in today's video
come from World Wide Corals,
who specialize in some really crazy color combinations.
And on top of that,
zoanthids are a really perfect beginner coral
because they can survive in a wide variety of parameters,
flow patterns, and lighting conditions.
They can be grown in low to high light,
but I usually shoot for that large polyp stony range
somewhere between 75 and 125 par.
While photosynthetic,
they can definitely benefit from weekly feeding
with some sort of finely ground up coral food.
Other than that,
all they need is low to medium indirect flow
and stable water conditions.
For sand, we are sticking with the CaribSea special grade.
It's the perfect balance of grain size
that is large enough to not blow around
but small enough to not create a detritus trap.
For reef rock,
we went with a few pre-recycled pieces
of CaribSea life rock.
Here's the thing about our aquascape.
I have never seen a hobbyist create only a zoa garden
in their tank with nothing else,
but that's exactly what we've done here.
Usually, a zoa garden is a small portion of your tank
or you create some sort of zoa garden on an island.
I personally think zoanthids look their absolute best
when paired in a tank with other sized and textured corals.
All that being said, we chose to make
one large zoanthid island with a few smaller islands
to really showcase the variety.
But if you wanna add in some other larger,
maybe soft corals, something like a toad stool
or a finger leather coral, you could probably get
a lot more depth in the tank and also utilize
the vertical space a lot better than just a zoa garden.
To adapt the IM 14 to a zoa garden,
we really didn't have to make any special gear changes.
We did remove the flared nozzle and replaced it
with a VCA random flow generator nozzle,
as that helped decrease the amount of flow
and added some variability in the tank.
We're using the AI Prime 16 HD with the 12 inch flex arm.
We always adjust the spectrum of our AI lights
using the built-in Kelvin scale.
On this tank, a maximum intensity of 40% with 12,000 Kelvin
really felt perfect for me, not overly blue but blue enough
to make a lot of those fluorescent colors pop.
Feel free to make adjustments either more or less blue
depending on your own visual preferences,
but be aware that any adjustment you make
could also change the amount of par in the tank,
so it'll be a good idea to use a par meter
and adjust the intensity accordingly.
Since I work from home, I like to view my corals
during the daytime.
Sunrise starts at 7 a.m. and it slowly ramps up
to a full intensity of 40% with 12,000 Kelvin at 11 a.m.
My max photo period lasts from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m.,
and then slowly ramps down to complete dark at 8 p.m.
A zoa garden tank is great for a wide variety
of small fish and inverts, but I just added
a pair of premium black ice ocellaris clownfish
to give it a pop of color.
Moving on to zoas, I can't tell you any of the names
of the zoas in this tank but I asked World Wide Corals
to send me a selection, a good mix of colors
but nothing considered collectored,
high end, or really expensive.
All of my zoas have been dipped and in
the water box quarantine tank for about two to three months.
For some reason, aiptasia love to hide amongst zoanthids,
and rather than using a product,
something like F-Aiptasia to go in there
and individually kill those aiptasia,
I'd really recommend considering a more natural approach.
If you have a larger system than this tank back here,
you could get an aiptasia eating filefish,
or maybe consider using a peppermint shrimp
or as a last resort, a berghia nudibranch.
The problem I have found with using something
like F-Aiptasia is it's almost impossible
to just kill the aiptasia.
Every time I use F-Aiptasia,
even when I'm being really careful,
it seems to kill several heads of zoanthids
in the immediate area, which is really frustrating.
Here's just a few tips to creating a zoanthid garden.
Number one, to really make the colors pop,
use a color wheel.
Complimentary colors are those colors found
on the opposite side of the color wheel.
For example, red and green, orange and blue,
and yellow and purple.
By putting complimentary colors together,
it will make the colors seem brighter.
Number two, give the zoas space to grow.
Given the right conditions,
zoanthids can grow really quickly,
so spacing out your zoanthids will allow them
to fill up the rock over a period of two to three months.
Tip number three, remove zoanthids from frag plugs.
I find nothing as unpleasant as staring at a frag plug
instead of the beautiful zoanthid on top of it.
So I would just recommend using some bone cutters
to remove as much of the frag plug as possible.
And if you find this super challenging
because they're mounted on ceramic plugs,
consider purchasing aragonite base plugs in the future
as they are way easier to chip away with bone cutters.
And the fourth tip is use extra thick super glue.
It's really easy to attach zoas to a rock
via their frag plug using a small amount
of extra thick, super glue.
The beautiful thing about zoanthids
is they are really easy to care for.
Keep up on your usual maintenance and then just sit back
and watch your zoas grow and fill in the rock.
Over time, you can frag your zoas
and trade them with a friend to build up your own zoadex.
If you love zoanthids,
you will likely love our next IM 14 build,
sea fans, macroalgae, and sponges.
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss that video.
The link to the entire innovative marine playlist
is right here, and as always everyone,
thanks for watching.
Happy reefing. Be well.
We'll see you next time.