Slow growth in sps corals

madmike10000

New member
I have 5 or 6 different sps corals. Monti cap orange and green and a monti setosa that hardly grow. The only one i saw grow was the orange cap and that was maybe 3mm in 4 months. A green slimmer that grows a base but wont grow up and another acro that wont grow at all. the color is good its just that the are not growing and i have no idea why. I have alot of lps that dont grow at all aswell. Like brain and hammer and candy cane coral. actually the only thing in my tank that grows is gsp, duncan, mushrooms and zooas can anyone help me out please if you know anything




65gallon tank 30 gallon sump
Bubble magnus curve 5 skimmer
2 Global star leds
About 2100 gph of water movement
Carbon and gfo reactor
Fuge with live rock and cheato
5 inch deep sand bed
Tank is 6 months old
80-100 pounds of live rock
Parimeters are stable at
Sal 1.025-1.026
Temp 78-79
Ph 8.3
Amm 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate under 1
P04 always tests as 0
Calc 390-400
Alk 9-9.5
Mag 1400
1 clown fish
2 blue chromis
1 kole tang
Dose 2 part esv 18ml a day
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You may also struggle with leds as they can take a lot of trial and error or experience to dial in.
 
I am running similar setup. I first went with all LED light. For some reasons SPS don't seems to do so well but my soft corals are doing great. After almost a year I decided to go back to all T5 light. I am very happy with the color and growth of my sps. I know that many reefers had great success with LED light, I am not one of them. I would suggests to give all T5 or T5/led combo a try.

good luck
 
I am running similar setup. I first went with all LED light. For some reasons SPS don't seems to do so well but my soft corals are doing great. After almost a year I decided to go back to all T5 light. I am very happy with the color and growth of my sps. I know that many reefers had great success with LED light, I am not one of them. I would suggests to give all T5 or T5/led combo a try.

good luck
Unfortunately i cant afford to get new lights. Mine are at 30% power. Im to afraid to raise it up any more because o dont want to kill anything. They are very bright. I wish i had a par meter to test them
 
Unfortunately i cant afford to get new lights. Mine are at 30% power. Im to afraid to raise it up any more because o dont want to kill anything. They are very bright. I wish i had a par meter to test them

Can you turn up the white and blue spectrums independently? If so then crank the blues up to 100% and leave the whites around 20-30%.

Also have you tried running carbon? It's unlikely but sometimes toadstools and some leathers release toxins into the water that can stop other corals from growing.
 
I had the same problem with slow or no growth with my SPS, and I was also running the cheap LED's. I decided for a few reasons to switch to a Kessil. Its only been up for a few weeks and I am taking it slow. But I hope it will help with growth.
 
Make sure your not overdoing it with your carbon reactor. Carbon in a reactor is very efficient. When i packed my reactor with a bunch or carbon and ran a good amount of flow through it a couple years ago, i had an issue with pale sps.
 
Id also say it's the LEDs. I've never heard of that brand either. It's not about them being able to produce enough light, it's about the spectrum. Many people including myself, have tried LEDs, only to switch back to MH or T5. I personally don't think LEDs are ready to be the only light source of a reef quite yet, still more testing to be done.
 
I personally disagree with fishkid6692. I've seen plenty of success with LED's. The only problem, even I ran into with, is finding that absolute sweet spot. Unfortunately, which sucks, is LED's are trial and error unlike T5 where you can plug and play. Though I personally have had trouble with LED on my Reefbreeders for example, found my sweet spot, and my acros completely took off.

Though I think an awesome setup, which I'm thinking of doing, is a mixture between LED/T5.

But like I said, LED's are absolutely up to par and will 100% work solo. You just have to adjust accordingly to your corals.
 
Id also say it's the LEDs. I've never heard of that brand either. It's not about them being able to produce enough light, it's about the spectrum. Many people including myself, have tried LEDs, only to switch back to MH or T5. I personally don't think LEDs are ready to be the only light source of a reef quite yet, still more testing to be done.

The days of questioning if LED's alone are enough to grow SPS are long gone... Some no-name fixtures like the OP uses are imo questionable and very well might be the issue, but under good ones the debate is long settled. I use a Halo and get about 1/4" every 10 days on some SPS with ridiculous colors.
 
If you only have them at 30% white, turn them up slowly. Go 5% a week. You won't kill anything. They'll pale before any issues occur.
 
I think you have a very nicely set up system.
My advice would be to add a few more fish and feed them more.
I think your system is a bit young but I really think that there are not enough nutrients for the corals to really be happy..
I wouldn't make any changes... You've planned your system very well..
Just get more fish in there, they will in turn feed the corals with their waste.
I would also consider removing or reducing the gfo... Until you start to get a po4 reading on your test...
But maybe keeping everything the same and just getting more fish in there would do the trick..

- actually, the one thing I would change would be to lower your alk to between 7 and 8.
It is a generally held belief that with very low nutrients, acropora do best with lower alkalinity.
 
I think you have a very nicely set up system.
My advice would be to add a few more fish and feed them more.
I think your system is a bit young but I really think that there are not enough nutrients for the corals to really be happy..
I wouldn't make any changes... You've planned your system very well..
Just get more fish in there, they will in turn feed the corals with their waste.
I would also consider removing or reducing the gfo... Until you start to get a po4 reading on your test...
But maybe keeping everything the same and just getting more fish in there would do the trick..

- actually, the one thing I would change would be to lower your alk to between 7 and 8.
It is a generally held belief that with very low nutrients, acropora do best with lower alkalinity.
Thank you and i have had the gfo removed for the last 2 weeks but i saw algea start growing every where. Brown hair algea to be specific so i turned it on again. And i just got my par meter. Here at the results from these cheap leds.
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Full Spectrum Cynthia 60*5W 300 watt LED Aquarium Light with Lens for each led.

Specification:
1)Switch-1(30 LEDs): 18xBlue(470),8XRoyal Blue(450),2 xRed(660), 2 xGreen(525)
2)Switch-2(30 LEDs): 12XWhite(13000K),4XWhite(6000K),4XWhite(4000K),8 xBlue(470), 2 xBlue(450)
3) Two power cords and two on/off switches to control Mixture Full Spectrum separately Output Optimized for PAR, Sufficient Lights Spectrum, Super Light Penetration PAR of the light is: 38PAR for Lens can output more PAR Value LED Output Power: 60pcs*5watt
Dimension: 15.8'' x 8.4'' x 2.6''
Input voltage: AC85V-265V
Lifespan: 50000hours

Each light is 129.99$ on amazon
 
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