Growth Rate & Propagation of Zoa's/Palys

GeoSciGuy

GeoSciGuy

New Member
I've read many things about Zoa's and Paly's, including that they have a rapid growth rate and small colonies will quickly spread to cover available space on their current rock and onto neighboring rocks. My question is, how fast is 'fast?' Weeks? Months? I am sure that it varies, so what are your experiences?
 
smkndrgn142

smkndrgn142

Member
In my personal experience they can spread very quickly. I bought a frag plug with 11 polyps on it, in the last 6 months it seems to have grown to more than 100. though it did take me a while to find a place where they were happy in my tank and actually started to grow and spread. I still see new ones forming on a daily basis.
 
twofinhogie

twofinhogie

Member
There's not really an answer for that. It depends on many different things like water quality, lighting, flow, nutrients, algae, or some other kind of irritant preventing optimum growth. My eagle eyes grew similar to smkndrgn's, starting off with no more than 10 and in 4 months grew to over 100 overflowing the rock it was on. Others have growth spurts like my candy apple reds that went from 1 polyp to 4 in less than 2 weeks and now has grown nothing in the past 3.......go figure?
 
reeferman

reeferman

Well-Known Member
my general rule is,if you want it to grow fast,it probably wont,if you want it to slowly spread,it will take the tank over!lol
 
BigJay

BigJay

Well-Known Member
It truely varies by variety and by your specific tank. For example one type of zoanthid may grow like a weed in my tank with my set up but may never spread in yours. Zoanthids come from a wide range of depths, from deep water to relatively shallow. Also some zoanthids are purely photosynthetic and some rapidly and voraciously consume food. The ones that consume may have extra energy to facilitate faster growth. The way a zoanthid spreads can also help predict its rate of growth, like matting polyps I find tend to spread faster, but that may not be universally true.
I have some zoanthids that I started with one and have propagated 100's upon 100's in a few years time and I have others that I started with one and after a couple years only have 4 or 5. I find that the size and coloration have very little to do with its rate of growth.
propagating zoanthids is probably the easiest way to get your feet wet in propagating corals. I like to to start my colonies with at least 3 or 4 polyps as I find growth is accelerated over just one. With most varieties the grow out to sell able colony (about 10 polyps) should only take about 45-60 days if they are happy with the light and water flow where they are located. Other varieties like nuke greens, purple deaths , parrot eyes I find it takes quite some time to get a sellable colony so most are sold by the polyp and a sellable frag may contain just 1 or 2 polyps.
 
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