No Coral Growth

[gcavallo16]

So, my 37 gallon tank doesn't want to grow any coral. Ive had my tank up for 7 months and I keep mostly LPS, a couple softies, 2 easy sps frags, and a rbta. I cant seem to grow any corals other than GSP which has actually slowed down I think. Not even my xenia will kick into gear. My parameters are all very normal, and I have done 4-5 15 gallon weekly water changes to try and dilute whatever is causing the problem. I have a powerful skimmer (sn123 skimz) to keep nutrients low, and I feed my 6 fish sparingly always. My light is a reefbreeder LED value. I am thinking of getting some GFO for a reactor i have laying around to also slow down my problem. My sand and glass (but not my rocks) always get covered in brown gunk (that looks like cyano or dinos but I'm convinced neither are it). My hammer opens up pretty nicely every so often but he is often closed up and has grown about 1 inch since I got him in may for my other tank. From what I hear they grow much faster than this! My rbta does great tho which is wierd and is sticky and colorful. Is there something I should do differently? I would be willing to invest in some new additives but i feel like Im shooting in the dark. Any feedback would help me a lot and I trust your jugement!

[xCry0x]

Adding kalk to my top off reservoir is what kicked my lps/sps into overdrive.

[Sk8r]

'very normal.'
Please give specific numbers. S/b abt 1300 mg, 8.3 alk, 420 ca. These are 'floor' numbers. They should not rise too far above and never dip below. If those are not at fault, the distance of corals from the light might be an issue.

[gcavallo16]

Yes, i mix in some kalk to my ATO. Just checked my levels- 1350 mg, 8.3 dkh, 390 cal. Guess I should dose some calcium... But I feel like if I just keep my levels still and do big water changes and have a GFO reactor etc. eventually i will need to replenish with some coral food... Idk i just want my corals to be happy. Btw how to you guys feel about reefbreeders and coral growth. Mine color up nicely, but maybe corsls dont like them long term?

[BigCountry74]

i did not have any luck growing coral under cheap led. they were good for color but not growth. but that was just my experience.

i went MH 14k phoenix this time around and the growth difference is night and day

[JammyBirch]

Originally Posted by gcavallo16

Yes, i mix in some kalk to my ATO. Just checked my levels- 1350 mg, 8.3 dkh, 390 cal. Guess I should dose some calcium... But I feel like if I just keep my levels still and do big water changes and have a GFO reactor etc. eventually i will need to replenish with some coral food... Idk i just want my corals to be happy. Btw how to you guys feel about reefbreeders and coral growth. Mine color up nicely, but maybe corsls dont like them long term?

I have a reefbreeder value fixture...coral growth i have is good, LPS and SPS tank all corals have grown significantly. My hammer has quadrupled in size it now has 5 heads, even my acros are growing well...deep water, milli, and myagi tort are encrusting the rock. The Red cap is the growth rock star of the tank though, it's 4x the size of when i bought it has encrusted everything around it. Its 4 months old. The color is the problem with that coral, it darkens up then seems to bleach out...wierd. It's a hot pink cap i guess.

I don't like the color i get on some of the corals especially the reds, but the growth has been constantly good. I find it very difficult to get pictures using the LEDs, and adjustments are also difficult to dial in.

personally i think your calcium is too low, i'd jack it up to 420ish and if you are not target feeding then you are in for a slow game of growth. IMO. I use reef roids and phytoplankton, get a long baster and load it up. I feed 1/16th of a tablespoon twice a week, one hour after lights out. Once i started feeding regularly the corals took off.

[Sk8r]

You've undertaken a harder than usual job by mixing softies and stonies. When annoyed, softies spit chemicals that discourage other corals. Placing them so all the softies are downwind of the stony helps. Carbon can help this.
Stony can't grow absent enough calcium. 420-450 is a decent range.
Softies are generally low-light and don't like strong light. Put them low but not near the outflow.
Stonies need strong light.
SPS don't want any food in their water to speak up: a hyper-skimmer and crystal clear water for them.
The anemone and softies like food in their water: moderate skimming, nutrient-laden water.

[JammyBirch]

Flow and location in the tank are a big deal too...that hammer should be huge by now. I have mine low in the tank with just enough flow on it to make is sway back and forth.

Here is my tank settings:

18x18x18 (25g cube)
RB Value fixture (25% white, 50% blue) - 8hour schedule
SCA 301 Skimmer set low, i want detectable nitrates
Water changes once a month, 5g
Rw4 wave maker set to W1 for a nice wave formation, runs in night mode at night.

Calcium - 416
Mag - 1350
Alk - 9
Phos - 0 (Hanna checker always says 0, i run GFO and change it out once i have to clean the glass more than twice a week
Ph - 8.2
SG - 1.024

Hammer coral - low in the tank low flow
Zoos - low in the tank low flow
Myagi tort - high in the tank high flow
Deep water - High high
green slimer - high high
blue bottle brush - high high
red cap - mid moderate flow
red planet - mid low flow
brain maze coral - low moderate

I have 4 fish... 2 osc clowns, royal gramma and pygmy cherub angel

go to LiveAquaria and research your corals for location and flow if you haven't already. It's a big deal.

Also the brown jusk may just be diatoms...what is your CUC? do you have any cerith snails in there?

I hope this helps.

[gcavallo16]

Thanks, and yes I have done all the research you can think of. I use Coral Pro Salt by red sea and do about 15 gallons biweekly by now. I know all of their flow requirements, but I feel like if my flow is low ill get dead spots... I have 2 RW4s that get some nice flow in the tank but its not nearly surging. It is very focused, but the rest of the tank seems to be too soft. Ill make sure to sell my Leather because it had become very large... Are zoos and GSP okay with sps/lps? And also on the feeding schedulle- do you recommend spot feeding SPS corals reef chilli? I usually just use mysis on the acans and do flake daily feedings. What are your views on reef roids? And lastly should I control my phosphates via media?

[gcavallo16]

I have a hefty clean up crew of Ceriths... I thought diatoms went away forever once the tank established..? Should i get some sort of other sand cleaner like a goby or fighting conch or sand sifting sea star or cucumber?

[gcavallo16]

Also you keep your reefbreeders at 25 and 50%? Ive worked my corals up to 50-75%! I also have a pretty tall tank tho

[las]

If u are running Red Sea pro salt with a 12 dkh and u start doing large WC, ur goin to quickly lower ur levels of phosphate and nitrate and you will get burnt tips and tissue recession

[gcavallo16]

Originally Posted by las

If u are running Red Sea pro salt with a 12 dkh and u start doing large WC, ur goin to quickly lower ur levels of phosphate and nitrate and you will get burnt tips and tissue recession

So would you say not to do big water changes or do water changes and add GFO

[Sk8r]

Re water changes: watching your temperature, salinity, and calcium, mg and alkalinity with the incoming water relative to the tank water is useful with more delicate corals such as sps. Doing a large water change, it might be helpful to dose the tank beforehand to bring it slowly and gently into the same range as the change water. Hammer and such don't seem to mind a shock. But if you have sps, all sorts of caution are useful.

[JammyBirch]

Originally Posted by gcavallo16

Also you keep your reefbreeders at 25 and 50%? Ive worked my corals up to 50-75%! I also have a pretty tall tank tho

ya my tank is only 18" deep, the light is mounted about 10" off of the water...that light has some serious power, too bright to watch TV at high settings.

If you have cerith snails and brown gunk i bet it's not diatoms, ceriths can crush some diatom blooms, they do not go away for ever, by the way.

I'm not familiar with reef chilli, reef roids is a blend of plankton really. it's a very fine powder. I use it twice a week.

My tank is SPS dominant but i do have three LPS corals. I target feed them all except the hammer...i have no idea where or how that thing eats. Just a slight puff of food over the corals seems to do the trick. If you have 2 rw4 then you have plenty of capability are you running a wave?

Mine is setup to create a wave so that the water level is always rocking back and forth, i have a wp10 in there just to pound the high flow needs of the acro at the top but 90% of the work is done by the RW4. The wave frequency is based on your tank dimensions as to where you set the knob. With a wave you should get moderate surges everywhere with a rest period, closer to the RW the higher the flow during the surge.

You want to see the polyps swaying.

[Sk8r]

One other thing, which you may know: anchor them so firmly the bases won't rock---a problem particularly with stony. Knocking about and vibration seems to discourage them. Get them secure.

[gcavallo16]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

One other thing, which you may know: anchor them so firmly the bases won't rock---a problem particularly with stony. Knocking about and vibration seems to discourage them. Get them secure.

I have the hardest time securing them! lol i just always hate putting my hands/ baster in the tank cuz every time i go in there, the corals knock over and hit the sand face down. ugh my glue is **** and so is my putty.. i think its time for some extra thick reef glue from BRS

[gcavallo16]

Originally Posted by JammyBirch

I'm not familiar with reef chilli, reef roids is a blend of plankton really. it's a very fine powder. I use it twice a week.

My tank is SPS dominant but i do have three LPS corals. I target feed them all except the hammer...i have no idea where or how that thing eats. Just a slight puff of food over the corals seems to do the trick. If you have 2 rw4 then you have plenty of capability are you running a wave?

You want to see the polyps swaying.

I have a small box of reef bugs which I dose every once in a while. Will the LPS eat these? I thought they needed meaty foods? and do you ever target feed your SPS? lastly about my wave: I have two of them situated opposite to each other, but they are not working together (without the dual controller) is that a necessary piece of equipment?

[JammyBirch]

Originally Posted by gcavallo16

I have a small box of reef bugs which I dose every once in a while. Will the LPS eat these? I thought they needed meaty foods? and do you ever target feed your SPS? lastly about my wave: I have two of them situated opposite to each other, but they are not working together (without the dual controller) is that a necessary piece of equipment?

OH MAN!!! If you have 2 opposing each other and not working together that can be just fine. I have this setup aswell. What i'd suggest is making one the master wave maker, meaning choose one that will provide the best flow for the entire tank. Turn one of them off and set the master on W1, play with the knob to get the frequency of the wave set, then start increasing wave force until you have a nice wave that doesn't blow sand or corals. once you have one of them tuned to be the master just set the other one to "else" and see how that looks. The wave is a really nice feature it makes the flow through the tank more uniform.

LPS like meaty foods and Zooplankton. SPS like Zooplankton and Phytoplankton as well. I use ReefRoids which is a mix of different planktons, i add a shot of Kent phytoplanton to the batch and target feed all of them the same thing. So yes i feed the SPS. I found this really awesome tool that allows me to feed without putting my hand/arm in the tank ever... here is the link. It's adjustable for length too...really useful. I get water from the tank with this thing and squirt it into a bowl where i add RR and mix it up, then suck it back into the SeaSquirt then feed everything with the power heads in feed mode of course.

http://www.amazon.com/Kent-Marine-00...s=coral+feeder

[gcavallo16]

I have that exact baster haha i feed my anemone 2wice a week with it ��. Reef bugs is just like reefroids or reef chilli with zooplankton and phyto.. But still i have to clean my glass multiple times each day from green/ brown film. Do you think I should add some more media? If so how much and how fast should I do it?

[JammyBirch]

By the way you're asking all of the right questions, many have had the same struggles as you and me on here. Something is going to make the difference at some point and your tank will be awesome.

The key things that i found for good coral growth was:
1. I started to really measure and keep good, consistent Cal, ALK and MAG levels (everyone says they do including me but it takes more than a weekly measure when you're learning what your tank is using)

2. Detectable Nitrates, some will totally disagree with this one but i found, through research on here, some had success with detectable nitrates for SPS dominant tanks...i tried it and it was noticeacbly better, i run my skimmer super dry, only empty the cup 2x a month. We're talking 1-2ppm not 5ppm or more. use water changes to remove nitrates

3. GFO...since phosphate is a tough thing to measure and really understand what you have in the tank i relied on more chemistry smart people and BRS youtube videos that explained how phosphate somehow blocks nutrient uptake in some corals especially SPS so i run GFO...

4. Flow...my zoos where the problem child and the lesson learned on this one. I had them in low light and moderate flow for 2 months and they hardly opened up, finally moved then to a low flow location and the multiplied and tripled in size in the next two months.

5. Chasing numbers...I'm too lazy for this and really only measure once a week for nitrate, cal, alk and mag... I measured a lot 3x per week when i was figuring out my cal and alk uptake but now it's understood so i measure every week and right after water changes. A lot of tanks have totally nuked themselves from people chasing numbers. I'm pretty worried about overthinking it so i try to only react to obvious changes, and even then only make slight adjustments.

[JammyBirch]

Originally Posted by gcavallo16

I have that exact baster haha i feed my anemone 2wice a week with it ��. Reef bugs is just like reefroids or reef chilli with zooplankton and phyto.. But still i have to clean my glass multiple times each day from green/ brown film. Do you think I should add some more media? If so how much and how fast should I do it?

If you're running GFO you should only clean the glass once maybe twice a week, once i have to clean the glass more than twice a week i change the GFO. I use the 2 little fishes reactor and fill it up 1/4 of the way (about a cup). the flow through the reactor is important and you want to wash the GFo before you add it to the system. You want a fluidized bed meaning you just want to see it moving or slightly bubbling on the surface. You don't want so much flow that you see granuals popping into the water.