Coral Growth????

P

ProudMom

New member
What am I doing wrong? I have 2 10K 2 250 wtts metal halide lights on my long 125g SW tank, it has been running 6 months with very slow coral growth. Most of my corals are softies with some lps. Also attached to my system is a 29g Fuge with mostly chaeto algae. The following are my parameters:

calcium 400
ph 8.2
temp 78
nitrate 0
nitrate 0
amonia 0
salinity 1.024
Phosphate 0
copper 0

Iodine in the bull park

I do no dose for Magnesium because it is in my calcium mixture.

Please give me some help.
 
I say give it time to mature. If you have pictures from when you first set your tank up it helps to pull them out to judge your growth.
 
Give it time. LPS grow pretty slow for me, and I don't have much experience with softies.
 
what do you feed I have a bubble coral that I have had for app. 10 years. In that time it has survived poisoning from a sea apple a move from a 55 to a 150gl that drained itself twice from cracks. then went to a 300gl and survived a alkalinity spike that wiped out almost all of my corals. since then it has put off dozens of small bubble anemones. when I first got it it was about the size of a lemon it is now the size of a basketball and my favorite coral. I feed it once daily with a mixture of clams,oysters,muscles, nori and sugar. but it grows VERY slowand is VERY pretty.
 
I lost most of my fish due to an ick outbreak and so didn't give any kind of nutrients other than kent essentials to my corals & saw that my corals was not as healthy as before, but when I got new fish started feeding and the color & vitality of my softies & lps returned. How many fish do you have and what do you feed them?
 
What ever you do, do it slowly. Your doing ok, because your corals aren't dieing. Don't do anything drastic to try to get them to grow faster. Your more likely to make things worse.

I think your light levels are a little low, especially in the blue spectrum since your using 10K bulbs. I would try adding a couple of VHO T3 actinics. to suppliment the MH lighting you have.

Don't change anything else if you do. That way you can really judge the change from the lighting upgrade.
 
I am not for sure on this.
But I believe the 10,000k has the same amount of blue as the 20,000k.
The difference is that the 20,000k doesn't have the yellow.

LPS doesn't grow all that fast and I would not expect six months to show a great deal of growth although some would be expected.

The first six to eight months of my tank nothing seemed to grow. Then I nailed alkalinity and got anal about water changes. Since then everything has improved greatly.
 
I feed zooplankton, phytoplankotn, oyster eggs, Mysis/Brine shrimp plus I add selcon. I feed my corals almost everyday.
I have 9 fish in my 125g SW tank, most of the corals are soft.
 
ProudMom,

Check this thread. Talks about feeding corals and adding amino acids to create great growth. While I dont recommend you tear off and do something drastic, I believe the thread does show the importance of feeding (the correct things). It has quite a bit of info from Italy regarding feeding. It is an interesting read. I also believe that 6 months is not enough time to truly measuring growth and agree with above post on getting anal about doing water changes. Eric Borneman (sp) also has a coral food recipe that is similar. I dont recall the exact site but believe he posted here on RC regarding his feeding method.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=971190&goto=newpost

FWIW
 
I was not suggesting changing to 20K bulbs. I was suggesting adding more light. Two 250 MH lights over a 125 is not much. It works out to 4 watts per gallon. That is just about the bare minimum. Some corals could survive at that light level, but many would be stressed by it.

I know that the watts per gallon calculation is not dogma set in stone, but it does give an idea of how much light you have. Of course, light produced by a 250 MH will vary with bulb type, ballast type, and reflector type, not to mention height of the bulb above the water.
 
"I was not suggesting changing to 20K bulbs. I was suggesting adding more light. Two 250 MH lights over a 125 is not much. It works out to 4 watts per gallon. That is just about the bare minimum. Some corals could survive at that light level, but many would be stressed by it."

I disagree, that might be too much for lps. I have 3 x 250's on my 180 and I am going to switch away from 10k's because its too much light for my lps and softies. I want a mixed reef, w/ some sps, so I am going to try out 20k on one side, 14k in the middle and 10k on the other, might look a little wierd but I think my corals will like it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8930549#post8930549 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by daytonians
I think your light levels are a little low, especially in the blue spectrum since your using 10K bulbs. I would try adding a couple of VHO T3 actinics.
Click to expand...

You are suggesting that 10,000k lack blue spectrum. You are using the 10,000k as a reason to add blue.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8935051#post8935051 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by daytonians
I was not suggesting changing to 20K bulbs. I was suggesting adding more light. Two 250 MH lights over a 125 is not much. It works out to 4 watts per gallon. That is just about the bare minimum. Some corals could survive at that light level, but many would be stressed by it.
Click to expand...

True, you suggested actinics.
Adding actinics is a visual supplement more than anything. If you think a blue visual impression is needed, add a 20,000k bulb.
If you want to add "light" add a 10,000k.

Also, 500 watt MH over a 125 should be plenty for LPS/softies.
The watts per gallon rule doesn't work at all and is a bad idea to keep alive.
If you place a 100w MH bulb over a 10gallon tank you get 10 watts per gallon. If you place it over a 100 gallon tank you get 1watt per gallon. But if the coral is placed in the same location under the bulb it will do fine in either tank.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8935051#post8935051 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by daytonians
I know that the watts per gallon calculation is not dogma set in stone, but it does give an idea of how much light you have. Of course, light produced by a 250 MH will vary with bulb type, ballast type, and reflector type, not to mention height of the bulb above the water.
Click to expand...

Watts per gallon is dogma at best (if religion is removed from the meaning) meaning something claimed as true without proof.

Watts per gallon tells you absolutely nothing about how much light you have.

In my humble opinion ;)
 
what kind of flow do you have?
Click to expand...

GREAT ! Question.....

Flow is not often considered. A recent Article on the advance aquarist indicates that flow is as important as lighting with regards to coral growth.
 
i think flow is just as important if not more than lighting. i have dual 150's over my 75 and everybody said no you can't keep sps its not a lot of light. well i have 5 different frags that are growing like crazy and the flow is just right. everybody has their own opinion but i would definatly kick the watts per gallon idea.
 
In all of my tanks, I've noticed coralline growth doesn't really startup until about a year. I do notice my tanks "run" much better if I add corals early on. (Just an observation, nothing scientific.) I recommend bumping lighting to almost too much, and pay attention to water flow-again, almost too much. Both my 20 and 40 are on the high end for lighting and waterflow, and it makes a huge difference. Also, remember to perform those water changes.
 
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