this thread is great. i'm gonna keep it going. i had all of my zoas/palys under 150w hqi's. for the most part, there was very little growth at all. probably due to the watteage of the bulbs and the depth they were placed in the tank. (135g - so approx. 24" from the light source) in june of last year, i built a frag tank. 30g long with a 5x39w t5 fixture over it. in november i decided to break down my 135 and condese that and the frag tank into my 54 corner.
i transferred all of my zoas into the frag tank in november. after light acclimating them for 3 weeks, i noticed that:
1) they were much more open
2) the colors under the mh couldn't even compare to the vividness of them under the t5's
3) several of the colonies started to rapidly grow.
i don't ahve a polyp count, but i will give you 1 prime example. i received a frag of zombie eyes from a friend, maybe 10 polyps. i had them in the 135 for probably close to 3-4 months before moving them into the frag tank. there was NO noticable growth in that time frame. since the move, the colony has probably increased in size 4x. so that means that i have over 40 polyps in a 8 week period, with new growth almost daily.
ime (which doesn't account or much - lol) i am attributing the growth to light. light light light light light.
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