Slow or No Growth

It takes time. 100days is early. Like someone else said, weekly water changes or even bi-weekly at this point will help with nutrient levels for about a month I would do this, then you can scale back to weekly of bi monthly WC. Feed good foods, keep lighting good, keep filters clean and good skimmer. Be patient and everything will take off.
 
RtReef said:
It takes time. 100days is early. Like someone else said, weekly water changes or even bi-weekly at this point will help with nutrient levels for about a month I would do this, then you can scale back to weekly of bi monthly WC. Feed good foods, keep lighting good, keep filters clean and good skimmer. Be patient and everything will take off.
Click to expand...

Well slightly a different topic, but people keep saying more frequent of bigger water changes to help with the nutrients... what nutrients are they refering to when Ammonia, Nitrites, nitrates, phosphates are all at zero...?

Dont get me wrong I am not dismissing the value or bigger and more frequent water changes, I am just curious if I am missing something.
 
MHG said:
Well slightly a different topic, but people keep saying more frequent of bigger water changes to help with the nutrients... what nutrients are they refering to when Ammonia, Nitrites, nitrates, phosphates are all at zero...?

Dont get me wrong I am not dismissing the value or bigger and more frequent water changes, I am just curious if I am missing something.
Click to expand...

I think it's a 2 sided statement. Yes this is helping to remove trace nutrients from the system, sometimes they are in small enough amounts that they my not register on a test. But it is also about refreshing trace elements (calcium, iodine, mag, etc) all things that get used up by the coral growth. It is more about keeping everything fresh and clean
 
Water changes are something that is extremly debatable as to what is adequate and what is excessive. The thing about large water changes is that they do create sudden changes in the enviroment of the corals which can cause tehem to have to constantly readjust.

I never tell people to change more than 10% of the water at once unless they have runn into some catrosphy that has made there water extremly foul. Yes I had experienced catrosphy years ago when somene dumped a full can of fish food in a tank . Having been in the business I also heard of many other nightmares like a drunk dumping his beer in the tank to make the fish happy. But generaly that does usualy happen.

Ones filteration system is probably even more important than water changes as well as what there dosing practices are. With a perfect dosing system and perfect filteration system theoreticly there should be no need for water changes. However in very few if any home aquariums is this possible. I like to think Im aproaching this as I do have a large 60 gallon refugium as well as good sized Protein Skimmer.

With adequate filteration you can get away with 5% monthly water changes but you realy cannot get away them completly. If your filteration is below ideal than the frequency of water changes should be increased. Doing 5% weekly changes is probably what the average set up needs. But under no circimustances would I be doining more than 10% on on a regular bases. And unless there was a specific temporary issue would I consider doing them more frequently that every third day.

Dosing as I said is also anoither big issue. Yes Calcium, Magnesium, and KH in the water does get used by the corals as well as multiple trace elements. The major elements do decrease in there sturation at various rates depending on which and haw many corals you have in your tank. In most cases simple water changes will not keep up the consumption of these elements and compounds so dosing is required. There are also trace elements that are much harder to judge since there levels may be close to undetectable yet they are important.

Is it possible to run a tank without adequete dosing and filteration? Probaly if its not over stocked and you do very frequent water changes. Looking at a 120 gallon tank doing 10% water changes every 3rd day means your changing out 12 gallons 120 times in one year using 1,440 gallons of salt water, or 10 pails of salt mix costing an average of $500 a year. A good Protein skimmer and dosing slighly can reduce this to less than 1/3 or $166 a year. For what you save in two years you can get a very good protein skimmer and realy reduce your work load. If you add a good sized refugium which are less expensive than protein skimmers you can probably reduce that salt usage in half again. This is not to mention the time you also save for yourself.
 
I hope you cut and pasted that from something you wrote earlier. Wow, thats a mouthful. Thanks...

I think if anyone thinks they have found the perfect setup, this site will produce a bunch who will state otherwise.


Unless I was retired, I cant see doing anything more than once a month. Thats why I try not to overload and overfeed my tank.
 
I guess it depends on the size of the tank, but my 34g solana maintenance is VERY easy. once a week or two water changes and when i remember change out some medias and wallaaaaa! I really judge things based off how my corals look and the less I mess with it, it tends to look better
 
Yes there are loads of variables. And like you said the less you mess with it the better off you are generaly. But when you do mess with it the secret is to do small changes rather than big changes.

Some thoughts went through my mind today. Theoriticly if you had a tank with nothing in it but salt water and some water circulation the tank would nopt need any filteration, dosing, or water changes. Now fish generaly cause the biggest bioload on a tank with feed, waste products etc. So if you do not keep any fish in the tank but only live corals the need for filteration and water changes would be minimized other for keeping the calcium, magnesium, Alkilinity and trace element up.

Has anyone tried this?
 
A few weeks ago, I noticed some bleaching in my lps corals so I cut back the light... Now I have zero growth so I am assuming my slow growth issue has been light related. As I slowly crank them back up we will see I guess...
 
MHG said:
A few weeks ago, I noticed some bleaching in my lps corals so I cut back the light... Now I have zero growth so I am assuming my slow growth issue has been light related. As I slowly crank them back up we will see I guess...
Click to expand...

Light is a touchy thing and sometimes hard to balance. The key is that they enough of the frequencies they need without going overboard expecialy on the frequencies that are detrimental to them.

you could say there needs can be calculated by intensity times duration. However if intensity is laclking you cannot make up for it by going over 16 hours of light since they need there dark time as well. Simularly if intensity is too great it will burn them in a short period of time.

If they need an ideal 1,000 units of light every day you can go with 125 units for 8 hours or you can go with 65 uniots of light over 16 hours. but if you give them more than 16 hours of light or less than 8 you realu get a negative response since they cannot adjust to that drastic of a balance in there cycle.
 
well slowly bumping back up the light. I am getting some growth on my breen birdnest 2/3rds up. nothing on the rest... I am hoping I get some color back on my monti cap but my green button polyps look better now...

I am on the list for the clubs PAR meter so sooon I can make a more educated guess
 
Chaeto + a good CUC + LR + water changes should be good enough unless you're feeding on the order of an azoo tank. Not to say that GFO isn't good, I've just found that my zoas consistently react negatively to it. Also, it's known to cause problems with clams.
 
Actually, I mispoke before. What I meant to say that the cheato did nothing but wither back when I first had a phosphate issue. However it was likely outcompeted by the HA so I will definetly give it a try...


I only feed a pinch of pellets once a day and a small squirt of whatever I have at the time every other day...
 
So I got my hand on a par meter. Based on the percentages I had my lights at when I first started the tank i had par over 700 at the top and over 200 on the sand. That explains why my coraline was beached off. I did have growth though. After turning them way down and slowly back up I am at par on the sand bet between 50 and 130 on the sand bed and 250 at the top of the rock. I had my lights about 20 percent lower when I started this thread . Since then i was starting to see growth on the birds nest at the top. so in another few months or so I should be at around 400 - 500 at the top. As I turn it up I am seeing a little more growth but very little.

I have some small spots of new coraline starting on the rocks.


My purple Monticello still has zero growth and is at 190 par.... I think it's dead but it has no algae growing on it and does not look dead. It hasn't budged in months.
 
Ok so the Purple monti is not dead. I can see some polyps scattered about....

Since removing a piece of rubber used to hold the metric output of the skimmer to the us standard PVC I have growth in most of my corals. I think that was the biggest problem...

I will keep you all posted...
 
Well while I do see improvement, mathimatically it will take 10 years for me to see what others have in 2 years... I wish there was something else I could test for.
 
So good growth now on most of my sps... Except my monti and my frog spawn. Zero growth in 5 months.... My zoos grow but only one or two heads a month... I have been feeding like crazy. I think I amgonna buy some more fish...
 
You don't need to feed like crazy.
I guess you are talking about the fish.
Target feed the zoas with good quality dry coral food once a week, small amounts, and you'll see some good results. Do not overfeed.
Make sure the water chemistry is in check, skimmer is good and you have some flow going. Not to mention the bulbs in check.
Assuming everything is ok, the target feeding will help you some.
Same for the fishes. Quality food in moderation is better than excess of anything.

If you have too many organics in the system it can actually be detrimental to the organisms. Make sure you do partial water changes 10% month or 5% biweekly.

Every system is different and you need a good sense to figure out what yours is in need of.

Stability and balance are your best friends!
Good luck!

Grandis.
 
Well every time I tell people I have zero nitrates they say feed more because the nutrients are too low...

 
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