No coral growth

[mockranouse]

I started my tank last November and so far I have not had any luck with any corals. Nothing is dying, but there is 0 growth. I have some zoas, acans, 2 heads of torch, candy canes, and an orange plate coral. I also have an RBTA that just split a week ago. All of these corals are at least 6 months old and have shown almost no growth. The only growth I've seen has been 1-2 knew heads on my acan. I also have not seen any corraline growth I have no idea what is going on.

I will try to provide all of the info I can on my setup. I have is a 29 gallon DT with a 40B basement sump. I have a GH overflow, which I absolutely despise because it is so loud so if anyone has any suggestions on what to do about that, that would be great too. I test my water 1-2 times per month and have never had any readings that would be cause for concern. My alk has been a little on the low side at 8 dKH, but I don't think that's too alarming. I do a 5-10 gallon water change 1-2 times per month. My return pump runs around 150-200 GPH to the DT. I have an MP-10 and an RW-4 in the DT for flow and I just added a koralia nano in the sump for some more flow in there as well. I think there was just a thread on here about someone trying that out too. I have a HOB skimmer that I have used on and off. My lights are the Reefbreeder Photon 2 which I have programmed based on the recommendations from their site. I occasionally will run a filter sock in the sump. I have a dual chamber reactor that I run with carbon and gfo occasionally. I use 2 brute cans for RODI and saltwater mixing. I test the RODI occasionally and have never seen anything above 1 ppm, but it is almost always 0.

That's about all of the information I can think of. I'm really starting to get discouraged and am almost ready to call it quits. This is my second tank and I thought I had learned enough from my first one that this one would be much better. I could never stop corals form growing in my first tank and I barely knew what I was doing and they just took off. Any help or ideas on what I can do to turn things around would be great.

 

[Lsufan]

What is your nitrate & phosphate?
Do u have any algae?
Do u feed the corals?
Have u always run gfo?

 

[mockranouse]

Phosphate is what I have most recently tested as I didn't have a kit before. My DT, mixed salt water, and RODI all tested 0 with an API test kit.

I have very little algae on the glass, but there does seem to be a little fuzzy growth on the LR.

I spot feed the coral about once a week with the flow turned down so they can get everything and I have very recently started dosing Acropower per a local reefers suggestion.

I have run gfo a few weeks at a time and then I shut it off when I feel like I need to change it out.

 

[thegrun]

Please list your water parameters, "never had any readings that would be cause for concern" gives us absolutely nothing to gauge your tank's chemistry on. Also how stable are those parameters? Are you dosing and if so what and how often? Give us a brief description of your lighting ramp up, maximum intensity and duration and ramp down duration, I don't know what Reefbreeder recommends, it could be great or it could be a cause for concern.

 

[Bugboy2020]

If possible, I would start doing about 5-10 gallon water change per month. Also I recommend Reef Crystals salt.
Your issue is you dpo not have enough minerals. Your corals use up calcium very fast to grow and to keep up with them, you should do water changes.
Do you keep any livestock?

 

[Lsufan]

For the first year that I had one of my tanks setup I had 0 nitrate & phosphate & absolutely no algae growth. I started to feed the corals & they started to get a little better. I was like u, I didn't have any coral die & they looked good for the most part they just didn't grow.

I had to take my big tank down so I had to put my blue hippo tang in my 40 breeder tank with the corals in it while I got my upgrade setup. It took longer then expected so I had the hippo in the 40 for 4 months. As soon as he went in my nitrates went from zero to about 20 ppm. I never had to much phosphate (around 0.05ppm) but my nitrate stayed between 20 & 30 ppm. During that time all my lps started looking better then ever & growing faster then ever. I came to the conclusion that I just didn't have enough nutrients. Feeding helped but it seems nutrients helped more.

I'm not saying u have to have a dirty tank but having nitrate around 5ppm & phosphate around .02 to .05 was where I finally found the sweet spot. After I moved the hippo back to the big tank my nutrients went back to zero pretty quick so I struggle to keep a little nutrients in the tank. I need to get more fish but it's only a 40 breeder so I can't have to many fish so I have been waiting on the fish I really want. All that's in there right now is a clown & a leopard wrasse. In my case getting more fish will definetly help.

I'm not saying that's your issue but it could be worth checking out.
They may be getting a little to much light also so that may be something else u can look into or try maybe turning them down a little, but I'm far from a expert on LEDs

 

[mockranouse]

I do have 2 clown fish and 1 firefish. Like I said, I do a 5-10 gallon water change about twice a month. The only thing that I dose is kalk in my top off water.

I'm not sure on the stability of my parameters as I don't check everyday, but they are almost always about the same every time I do check them so I never thought they were unstable.

As far as parameters go:
Temp is 79-80
Salinity 1.026
Alk 9-10dKH
Calcium ~430
Magnesium 1300
pH 8-8.4, hard to tell precisely with the redsea test kit
Nitrate and nitrite 0

For the lighting, it ramps up over a 12 hour period with the blues maxing at 70% and the whites, violets, light blues, and reds maxing at 35%.the greens are a bit lower at 20%.

 

[xCry0x]

It's likely low nutrients in the tank.

Coral like clean water - with nutrients. In the ocean you have loads of plankton hitting the reefs. In your tank, you can supplement w/ coral foods (or more fish, which in turn create nitrates).

 

[mockranouse]

What is the best way to get a good balance of nutrients? Should I do something like less frequent water changes while dosing calcium, alk, and mg?

 

[Bent]

It's slow man. I've never had the growth that some other people seem to have.

My frogspawn has only gained 1 head in 2 years. My torch went from 2 to about 5 heads, my Favia brain is exactly the same size, my hammer went from 1 head to about 6. That's the only real growth I can write home about.

I don't get how these people get coral explosions. I think it's my lights. I'd like to switch to metal halides.

 

[pledosophy]

It's slow man. I've never had the growth that some other people seem to have.

My frogspawn has only gained 1 head in 2 years. My torch went from 2 to about 5 heads, my Favia brain is exactly the same size, my hammer went from 1 head to about 6. That's the only real growth I can write home about.

I don't get how these people get coral explosions. I think it's my lights. I'd like to switch to metal halides.

I get pretty good growth. Not as much as some, but more than most.

My trick is feeding a lot, 3-4 times a day. Keeping clean water via filtration not water changes (I did do a water change this year, but had skipped doing one last year)

I started vodka dosing about 6 years ago and that really helps.

I hooked up a CA reactor 1.5 years ago and that was the final boost in coral growth for me.

HTH

 

[mockranouse]

I've been dosing Acropower for a month now and that does not seem to make any difference at all in any of my corals. In the past couple of days I have been losing an orange plate coral and I don't know what would have changed that would have caused that. My acans still look good, but everything else does not. All of my zoanthids just barely open up when the lights are on. They are never fully open and round, the skirts are usually kind of closed over the polyp slightly when they try to open. My torch coral also doesn't open up much, maybe about an inch or less. When I got it from the LFS it was about 3 inches. My anemone looks ok, but it likes to hide in the very back of the tank. It is on a rock that I can freely move around and if I turn it towards the front it will walk around to be in the back overnight to a very shady spot.

I have been testing almost daily for the past month and everything seems quite stable:

Alk is ~8dKH

Calcium seems a bit high, but is stable around 460-470 and does not change even after
2 weeks of no water changes or any dosing.

Mag is still ~1300

Salinity is 1.026 and I've been calibrating my refractometer frequently to make sure it is correct

I have tested nitrates a few times and it has been between 0 and 2

The only thing I keep coming back to as being the problem is the Reefbreeders Photon V2's. Right now I am running an 11 hour cycle with the blues maxing out at 60% and the whites maxing out at ~40%. Lacking a PAR meter how can I tell if I am getting too little or too much light?

Is there anything that I am overlooking that could be an issue? Possibly something in my water that the corals don't like? Flow? Something that could be leaching into the water from my brute cans (this seems to be a hot topic)?

I'm starting to get extremely discouraged after spending an insane amount of money and time trying to do everything just right and seeing everything go so poorly for reasons I can't figure out.

 

[sde1500]

Corals are weird. I have a torch that has doubled in size, a foot away I have a frog spawn that hasn't done anything in the same time. I have 3 frags of different zoas in a line on the same rock, two doubled then stopped for a bit, one is just pouring off the plug in all directions adding polyps like crazy.

 

[chrisfont23]

IMO, stability is better than perfection, when it comes to lighting, flow and parameters. I don't mean that months of calcium levels < 350 and Alk +12 are good but keeping in check is key. I started to hit stride when I changed my flow subtly to make sure I had gentle, indirect flow where needed and was providing more adequate flow to the corals that required more of a blast. This involved some tinkering & repositioning. I kept the lights stable too - even though I lost a few corals to introducing LEDs, I rented a PARmeter and made sure I was getting everything I expected from my LEDs. I also switched to dosing Kalkwasser from my sumps ATO and that helped balance the Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium tremendously. Neither seem to waver much and that's over the course of time.

There is never one common tonic for growth. Likely it's finding the right balance and sticking with it.

 

[LJLKRL]

The only thing I keep coming back to as being the problem is the Reefbreeders Photon V2's. Right now I am running an 11 hour cycle with the blues maxing out at 60% and the whites maxing out at ~40%. Lacking a PAR meter how can I tell if I am getting too little or too much light?

Is there anything that I am overlooking that could be an issue? Possibly something in my water that the corals don't like? Flow? Something that could be leaching into the water from my brute cans (this seems to be a hot topic)?

I'm starting to get extremely discouraged after spending an insane amount of money and time trying to do everything just right and seeing everything go so poorly for reasons I can't figure out.

I have the photon V2's over my 210, I just got them about 3 weeks ago. They have 6 channels to program. Are you sure you have the V2 lights? How long have you had them on this tank?

I have a set of Photon 48 V1 that I had over my 55 gallon. They only have the blue and white channels to program, but there are other colors of LEDs in the white channel.

I got good growth of LPS and softies with the Photon 48 lights (V1, 2 channels) but when I put the V2 lights with 6 channels on the 210, my zoas and torch have been showing more growth than before in only 3 weeks. Everything looks better under the V2 lights with 6 channels.
The photon v1 with 2 channels will grow corals just fine though. My hammer went from 2 heads to about 18 heads under the v1 photons with 2 channels.

I am going to suggest you do a 10% water change monthly and don't run GFO.

Let some nutrients build up in the tank. Let it get a little dirtier than usual. Not filthy, but not pristine clean either. Turn the both channels down on your lights, maybe reduce both by 10%. My corals seemed to like it better when it was a little dimmer than I thought it should be.

If you want I can check how I had my photon 48 programmed and let you know.

 

[mockranouse]

I too believed that stability is key, so I was a little shocked when I tested everyday and was getting the same values for a month and everything still doesn't look good. However, there is still the possibility that there are some swings throughout the day.

I do have the V2's. I only mentioned the blues and whites because I didn't think the other channels mattered too much. I have them programmed using the excel sheet from the RB website that let's you set a duration and a maximum intensity for each channel. Do you think that 60% max on the blues (both blue channels), 40% on the whites, and the other channels between 5-15% is too much? I have been running that for about a month now and thought it might not be enough.

As others have suggested, I have started doing more infrequent water changes. I have been doing about 10% every 2 weeks instead of every week. I can't resist the urge to do a water change when everything starts to look so dirty so it's hard for me to go so long.

After dealing with this for the past year and finally trying to get help from this forum and still feeling like I'm failing I don't even think I'm concerned with growth anymore. I just want everything to look like it's doing ok.

 

[jacksonpt]

IMO, stability is better than perfection, when it comes to lighting, flow and parameters. I don't mean that months of calcium levels < 350 and Alk +12 are good but keeping in check is key. I started to hit stride when I changed my flow subtly to make sure I had gentle, indirect flow where needed and was providing more adequate flow to the corals that required more of a blast. This involved some tinkering & repositioning. I kept the lights stable too - even though I lost a few corals to introducing LEDs, I rented a PARmeter and made sure I was getting everything I expected from my LEDs. I also switched to dosing Kalkwasser from my sumps ATO and that helped balance the Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium tremendously. Neither seem to waver much and that's over the course of time.

There is never one common tonic for growth. Likely it's finding the right balance and sticking with it.

Completely agree.

I will also say that this hobby isn't as cookie cutter as some people would have you believe it is. You can't always say if A and B are true, then C will happen.

You did say your anemone split... so he is obviously doing well. Do you feed it?

 

[Mishri]

as others have said, With the corals you have I think your low nitrates are impacting growth. get your nitrates up in the 30-40ppm range at least. overfeed if you need to

There are also a ton of different coral foods you can try if you don't like that idea.. mix it up, start with recommended doses.. still low nitrate and no growth up the dose..

I tried reef frenzy, I didn't like it, my corals never responded all that well to it. My favorite that i've tried is probably Marine Snow... you can get it on amazon... although that's generally for filter feeders..

I've heard good things about this:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...mpid=03cseYY&gclid=CO_w5qb_6c8CFQaUaQodTA4OqQ

rod's food.. i haven't tried it myself, but I likely will in the future.

 

[chrisfont23]

as others have said, With the corals you have I think your low nitrates are impacting growth. get your nitrates up in the 30-40ppm range at least. overfeed if you need to

There are also a ton of different coral foods you can try if you don't like that idea.. mix it up, start with recommended doses.. still low nitrate and no growth up the dose..

I tried reef frenzy, I didn't like it, my corals never responded all that well to it. My favorite that i've tried is probably Marine Snow... you can get it on amazon... although that's generally for filter feeders..

I've heard good things about this:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...mpid=03cseYY&gclid=CO_w5qb_6c8CFQaUaQodTA4OqQ

rod's food.. i haven't tried it myself, but I likely will in the future.

I have tried coral frenzy. I liked it but it was expensive. It was difficult to control too with a turkey baster. Same with Cyclop-eeze. Now, I just take common fish food - say Omega One Marine Flakes, grind it up to a small, grain, mix with some New Life Spectrum 1mm pellets and dispense into the coral. Don't overdo it too. You are likely to wind up with a wore problem than no growth I am also using AquaVitro Fuel for about 6 months now. I was skeptical at first, but it has a nice mix of polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamins. And yes - I asked about the small amounts of copper and zinc and was told it's not enough to worry about.

 

[MakomekTVN]

The only thing that I dose is kalk in my top off water.

.

This sounds crazy but try stop using Kalk in ATO.Try a different method to keep your parameter stable. I have the same thing in the past no corals growth and coralline, after I quit kalk in my ATO everything start kicking in.