JammyBirch
Aquaria Engineering
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.
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.
