feeding
in my experience, some zoas 'react' to food, some 'eat' food (mostly palys), and others don't seem to even know i'm squirting them w/ food.
i'm not convinced that any of my zoas eat, but i am very convinced that some of my palys do.
exponential growth
another note, and it may seem obvious once stated, is that zoanthid growth is exponential. i.e. if you start w/ 2 polyps and grow a 3rd in 7 weeks, then you can carry that same logic out (roughly) to where if you had 20 polyps, you'd get roughly 10 more in the same time period.
furthermore, it seems to be at a greater exponential rate than just a simple multiplier factor. i.e. it seems to be more than just
1.5x the polyp count every
y time period. i'm not gonna go try and find a differential equation to describe their growth, but it seems to be that you might get 1.5x the first y period, then 1.55x the second y period, then 1.6x the third y period, etc. until it levels off at some growth rate number.
i've noticed this to be pretty consistent while watching them grow. there are other factors, i.e. surface area adjacent to potential growth areas vs. the highly populated center of a colony, but you get the idea.
(for the math and engineering peeps out there: assume the horse is a sphere! LOL)
so unfortunately, that logic lends itself to 'not fragging'. blasphemy! heehee!
so what do you do? frag or grow?
well, here's
my game plan. not saying it's right or wrong, just what i do!
if i've got a new colony or frag, after about 3 weeks of it being in my tank (to allow it to recoup from transport/fragging/new-tank-syndrome), i'll frag it and get it out to a couple of my key local trading buddies for backups. (they extend the same courtesy to me - a symbiotic relationship, ha ha!) then i'll let them grow to the unjustifiable number of 30 polyps. 30 polyps just seems like an aesthetically pleasing number of polyps to me when looking at zoas in my tank. it doesn't look like a 'frag' still, but not a colony either. once i'm at 30, i'll start fragging here and there for people as requested while 'slowly' letting my mother colony's numbers grow as well. remember - once yer at 30 polyps, yer growth is going to be much 'quicker' - or at least a higher
quantity of polyps, not necessarily
quicker.
so let's play out a year's worth of growth. numerically and chronologically, it would look something like:
- day 1 - new frag of 6 polyps comes in. DIP IT!! heh
- day 21 - (3 weeks since i've had them) perhaps 1 new polyp, frag it into 1 x 2 polyp and 1 x 5 polyp frags. get one in another tank!!!
- day 70 - at ~ 8 polyps
- day 119 - at ~ 13 polyps
- day 168 - at ~21 polyps
- day 217 - at ~32 polyps - frag a 5 polyp frag for someone, down to 27 polyps
- day 266 - at ~ 40-42 polyps (depending how the colony reacted to the fragging) - frag a 5 polyp frag for someone, down to ~36 polyps
- day 315 - at ~ 55 polyps - the surface area at which the zoas can spread out is large, but no 'center' growth as there's nowhere for the center polyps to grow! frag 2 x 5 polyp frags, down to 45 polyps
- day 364 - at ~ 62 polyps, same growth restraints, frag 2 x 5 polyp frags, down to 52
so in ~ 3/4 year, i'm ready for fragging. after 1 years time, my mother colony is at ~52 polyps, and i've made a total of 7 frags. and after this mark, i'm making 2 frags per month and soon 3 polyp frags per month.
also - you noticed that i made mention of no 'center' growth as it's crowded out. this lends to more advanced fragging techniques involving fragging the middle of your colony and not just the edges. why? well, if you make frags in the middle of your colony, then the middle zoas have a place to grow too. thus, yer getting border growth
and middle growth. it is a lot more work to frag in this manner though...
thoughts?