Soft coral help

[Roblox84]

I am kind of stumped and was wondering if anyone can help me out. My problem is that I have had soft corals in my tank for about 1 year 2 months and none of them have grown except the xenia. I have zooanthids, xenia, star polyps, yellow polyps and a tree coral and mushroom coral. All of the corals have very minimal expansion and the mushrooms never inflate larger than a dime. Only the xenia coral has split everywhere and taken up two rocks and the rest of the coral has stayed the same without spreading. I have a 75 gallon tank mostly bare bottom with only about 4 handfulls of crushed coral thrown in for looks. The temp is 80 salinity is 1.025 and stay's like that due to ATO unit. I change 10 gallons every 2 weeks. I used to have a sureflow mod that pumped around 1200-1400 gallons per hour but that was to much flow and went to 2 maxi jets 1200 which put out just enough flow. I have 7 small fish, coral banded shrimp, 2 serpent stars and 4 turbo snails. I have 440 watts of vho's which are an aquasun, super actinic, 454, 75.25 bulbs. There is around 50-60 pounds of live rock in the tank. I also have a 10 gallon sump with only an eshopps protein skimmer for filtration. Ph is kept at 8.3 and calcium, alk levels are good. I left home for 4 days and when I came back home I looked at my protein skimmer and noticed that it got clogged with some algae so it must have not been working for at least a few days. I also noticed that my coral has expanded more then normally. I was wondering if the protein skimmer is skimming everything out of the water and the corals are left with nothing to absorb. I don't know what else to do, I am sick of my corals not growing. There is also no nuisance algae and coraline algae grows nicely. I used to have a 20 gallon reef tank with only a hob filter and the corals in that tank grew every day so the only thing I can think of it that the skimmer is pulling all the nutrients out of the water column.

[Fishmonk]

I'm not the most experienced one around here, but I would look towards the skimmer too. What model/brand is it? If it is overpowered, I can easily see it keeping the water too "clean," (read: devoid of nutrients).

IF that's the case, you could simply try feeding more heavily & more often. But you'd want to be fairly sure your skimmer is efficient enough, and probably increase your feedings slowly while observing the reaction in your ecosystem. That's what I'd do.

What do you normally feed?

[Roblox84]

The skimmer is only an eshopps psk-150, but it's only pulling out a cup of grime every few day's. I feed the fish only mysis shrimp once a day and I don't feed the corals any plankton or anything like that.

[gflat65]

What are your phosphate levels? If you have a local club (or know someone) with a photometer, you should get a good idea of your levels. Regular test kits are not very reliable for PO4. Too much PO4 can hinder coral growth.

[Roblox84]

I guess i'll have to do that. I use RO water and also run a phosphate removing media, but maybe that's not enough.

[Roblox84]

I checked phosphate and the levels were undetectable. My guess is that I will just be screwed and not be able to have corals due to the nutrient deficient environment. It seems as though in my last reef tank I did everything wrong, I had 3 inches of crushed coral substrate, no skimmer, and a hob filter, and apart from adding evap makeup water once a week I maybe only did a water change once every 2-3 months if that. And yet I couldn't keep my corals from taking over my tank and I had to throw frags away every 2-3 days because they were growing that much. So i'm thinking that I should just not change the water for a good month or two and let the nutrients build up so that way the corals have something to feed of off.

[gflat65]

There is something to be said for a hands off approach. I've been known to go months without water changes...

[jimmie6x]

I have similar issues with mushrooms in my tank, just a small 30 gal, fairly new setup. The shrooms in the store are huge and extended fully, when I get them home, they seem much smaller, and flat on the rocks, color is still good though. My phosphate levels were high and I'm using a media to try and reduce, couple weeks now, no change yet. Guy at the store says I may have to much light, god forbid LOL. Teklight T5 HO 4 bulb fixture. Xenia seems ok, it's starting to attach on it's own to other stuff around it. I think I need more live rock to create some overhangs maybe, give'em some shade??? I dunno.
Good luck.

[awilson500]

Do you use a refractometer or a Hydrometer? I had a slow growing tank when I started and my major problems where fixed when a got my salinity right. Don't get to frustrated with this hobby it takes a lot of time and money, but when you get it right it is so rewarding.

Wilson

[Roblox84]

I use a hydromemter.

[Roblox84]

Nice tank. I wish my mushrooms even looked like that. Mine are about 1/3 or 1/4 the size of yours.

[awilson500]

I had 3 different Hydrometers and everyone of them had different readings from the same water. so I spent the money to get a refractometer and I found out that my water salinity was way off. Since I have fixed the water in my tank everything has blown up with life. I am actually getting ready to sell some of my mushrooms, Xenia, and green star. My zoa's are next on the chop block. Everything has tripled in size in about 7 months. Good luck with your advancers.

[gflat65]

Tek T5's over mushrooms can be too much. Try moving them under a ledge, or in the far corners of the tank and see if they plump up a little. In lower light tanks (like most LFS tanks with NO's or PC's), they can get huge. Could also be chemistry related, but I have to put my mushrooms in shade under my T5's.

[Skipper]

Are you using a grounding probe? Perhaps there is some stray current in the tank that's bothering the corals.

[Roblox84]

nope no grounding probe. Just recently have taken the crushed coral out of the tank and ordered 20 pounds of base rock to change up my landscaping a bit. So I will vacuum up the bottom of the aquarium from all the crap and I will see if that does anything.

[twerlinich]

I feel your pain. I personally love mushrooms of all varieties and have bought many colonies over the years. While EVERYONE seems to report that mushrooms propagate like bunnies, I have had the opposite experience. Mine die. Purples and greens seem to last well (but do not propagate) but reds and blues shrink and die within a couple weeks. I've moved them around in my established 125 gal DSP (middle, top, bottom) -- but the reds and blues consistently expire. 1/3 water changes are performed monthly. Water chemistry, per the guy who performs them is "perfect". My critter population includes 1 percula, 1 powder blue tang, 1 flame angel, 1-flame hawk, 1- long nose hawk, 1 large old velvet damsel, 2 wrasses plus a large coral banded shrimp, cleaner shrimp, a 5" green starfish, several zoas, a 5" (based) green acopora, and a host of snails. I've also found that softies of various types do not survive long. Between the consistent losses of red and blue mushrooms and the loss of other softies I am really frustrated. Can anyone help? Thanks! -- Tom

[awilson500]

Interesting??? What is the temp in your tank? What salt do you use?

[twerlinich]

Originally Posted by awilson500

Interesting??? What is the temp in your tank? What salt do you use?

Temp is 78.5 F. Don't know salt type as water changes are performed for me monthly by an aquarist (contractor) who has been in the business of taking care of personal and commercial reef tanks for about 18 years. I'll ask him. Thanks!

[Roblox84]

I have recently put in 25 pounds more rock for some different aquascaping and in the process I also pulled out the remaining crushed coral in my tank which was only acting as a debris trap. I cleaned off the whole bottom and the sump from any crap so I hope that solves something. Also, during the process I noticed that my sump return pump (gen-x 2400) uses a metal impeller which was rusting. Do you guy's think that this excess rust seeping into the tank might have something to do wit the corals not doing well.

[Skipper]

Yep, I do.

[WhoDey64]

Originally Posted by Roblox84

I noticed that my sump return pump (gen-x 2400) uses a metal impeller which was rusting. Do you guy's think that this excess rust seeping into the tank might have something to do wit the corals not doing well.

Without a doubt.