frequent water changes affect zoas? how?

[clown fanatic]

this may sound a bid noobish as almost all of my questions do. but im soon going to start doing 5-10g water changes on my 55g tank once every two weeks. i read something awhile back that zoas prefer dirty water. do you think that by doing more water changes that my zoas growth and color will be stunned, or will it be the other way around.

[tekknoschtev]

5-10gal every two weeks isnt really enough, IMO. I do 25-50% water changes (depending on tank size) every week, and my zoas grow like crazy. I think the term 'dirty water' is overused, and misunderstood. I'm not trying to be harsh, but from my experience, good water parameters are better than disolved 'food' for the zoas. Doing water changes replenishes trace elements that get used up in the tank. If you can, bump the water changes to 10-15gal weekly.

By 'depending on tank size' what I mean is in my 20gal tank, I change nearly 75% of the water bi-weekly. With the rock and propagation stuff in there 75% is about 8-10gal.

In our 40gal tank, I do 10-20gal water changes bi-weekly. But when our 150 is setup, it will likely be 20gal water changes, twice a week.

[clown fanatic]

thanks for the response tekknoschtev

anyone else have an opinion?

[jasper24]

I change 2 gallons every week in my 20G and my orange zoas are spreading very quickly!

[xacttech]

10-15% weekly, great growth, no loses.

[Shultz]

Same here, all seems to be growing well & I do 10%ish per week

Cheers Shelton.

[Speckled Grouper]

In my 29g, I change 6g one week, 12g the next and so on. this tank has been set up for close to 3 month now and not a spec of algae, it's almost eerie....I have no skimmer and the only filtration is a modded Aquaclear 500. No fish, a few hermits, one emerald and a bunch of snails. My zoos are growing.

In my 20g, I had a terrible hair algae problem for some reason and I did a 100% water change last weekend, scrubbed the eggcrate shelves and picked the algae off every zoo frag for almost 7 hours! Now it looks more beautiful than ever.

[clown fanatic]

another thing i had to take into consideration, and this doesnt pertain to zoa's but my lawnmower blenny, will the natural food supply in my tank lessen as a result of the new water change routine?

thanks!

[fishgirl7]

if you are worried about losing your "buggies" just don't clean all your bottom substrate you can alternate sections - i hate killing my copepods-in fact i poke through the buckets last few inches and save evryone with a turkey baster. gotte keep the supply up for hungry gobies!

[MyLittleReef]

I do a 10% change every 2 weeks and a 20% change every 3 months.

I think most people who have zoanthids have a tendency to overfeed, myself included. I like watching the polyps go crazy from feeding.

I have a large skimmer and refugium for my size tank, but I get great growth and coloration.

[Reef Junkie]

Water changes are great for all of your inhabitants. Zoas love them.
Just remember, too much of anything is not good.

[LockeOak]

I do about 15% weekly on my 10G. Zoanthids are doing just fine.

[Tarkus70]

10% weekly and my Zoas are doing fine