algae scrubber experiences with zoas and palys

I bet people with fuges on zoa tanks benefit enormously from that type of set up. I can't imagine it being a detractor. I guess alternatively I know some peeps are having great look with color (and thus growth (I used to attest that they didn't go hand in hand, but now I really think they do)) with vitamin C dosing as a source of carbon. Might be worth looking into.

 

Did the people who had problems with their scrubbers have the scrubber only or did they continue using skimmer, pellet reactors,carbon reactor, etc.I have a friend who did exactly that and literally stripped all of the nutrients out of tank by using all them.

 

using both is a death sentence. Of course the problem is that there's not enough biomass on the scrubber for the first couple of months to keep up with the waste being processed by a skimmer/biopellets so you have to ween onto it and then quit the skimming habit once you've reached a full biomass on the screen of your scrubber.

 

Zoas are one of the few corals the eat plant material from the water. If you decrease all the plant type material, you will have to feed it to them or they will slowly starve.

 

craig what do you mean? Like actual chunks of algae, or phytoplankton, or vitamins and proteins secreted by plants like micro and macro algae?

 

Not chunks, I dont have my books with me, but they benefit greatly from Phytoplankton, and dirtier tanks that may have more algae have more plant food available. Spores, bacteria and so on.

If you all of the sudden take that food source away, you need to supplement it with something else like phyto paste or other foods. That is probably why people have had zoo problems after adding algae scrubbers, they likely starved to death.

Again, not 100% sure, but I believe that most all corals only receive 60% of their energy through photosynthesis, the other 40% they need to eat or absorb nutrients from the water itself.

 

Sometimes when I scrape my glass my zoas appear to eat the floating algae. They close up at least.

 

Anemones also need some Macro Algae correct?

 

No, nems like meatier chunkier food that they can grab with their tentacles and bring to their mouth. That is why a dead fish floats by a nem, and is grabbed and eaten.

 

I believe you can run zero N & P with no algae, but that is where target feeding comes in. Using a good quality phytoplankton and coral food becomes even more important.

I have seen plenty of awesome tanks that run very low nutrients. Their success though was heaving feeding of both the fish, and the corals.

 

Sure definitely,
The way it was explained to me was the Algae Zooanthellae that helps its color..

 

I run an algae scrubber, along with a skimmer and I have some nice colonies of Red People Eaters, Dragon Eyes, and Blue Thunder palys, and I have seen continuous growth on all of them.

 

Fascinating hypothesis. Probable too. Although, if you reference Addy & Loveland "dynamic aquaria 1993" they did extensive work with turf scrubbers and mapped food webs in these systems with increasing levels of bio diversity. They also suggested that it requires nearly a full square meter of turf scrubber to process the waste of 100 reef system. What are your thoughts on that Bud? And (hijacking here sorta) have you or others considered iron dosing as a source of improved productivity, or moreover as a source of deficiencies that may lead to the demise of things like certain types of zoanthids?