softies not growing

[aquablast]

My 75 gal tank has been set up for 1-1/2 years now and been stocked with variuos softies (colt coral, zoas, palys, green nepthia, star polyp, and shrooms) for abaout 1 year. A couple of zoas colonies have shrunk with other corals seemingly healthy but little to no growth. Some of the shrooms have multiplied but stay small. Have a realtively light fish load with 2 small clowns, 1 fire fish, 1 royal gramma, and one wrasse and some snails. All fish doing great, just no coral growth.
Water test ok with nitrate, nitrite and ammonia at 0, ph stays between 8.0 and 8.1 and alk at about 10 dkh. I use RO/DI water and skim 24/7. I do weekly 6 gal water changes and recently started dosing b-ionic. Went through normal algea blooms at 1st which all cleared in time. Lighting is 5 48" T5's. Tried feeding corals DT's but caused algea blooms so I stopped.
From pictures of other peoples thier coral growth exceeds mine by far. The corals seemed to do better when tank was yonger so i am wondering if water quality is now too good for softies since tank has become more established. The only other thing I can think of is too much light. Any input from the more experienced is appreciated.

 

[rogerrgr]

What is the TDS of your ro/di water? Have you tested your phosphates? How old are your bulbs?
What are your cal and mag levels? What is you tank temp and specific gravity, and what method do you use for testing SG? And are you using any granular activated carbon?

 

[aquablast]

TDS is 0
Phospahtes test 0 as well as nitrate, nitrite and ammonia
Changed bulbs 5 months ago (made no difference)
Calcium 410, don't test mag
temp 79
s.g 1.025 test with refractometer
I do use granular activated carbon and also run GFO in reactor
I also use Red Sea Coral pro salt

I have read post after post of do's and dont's and I just can't figure out why I have little to no growth. Fish are very happy and sanils do fine as well as a few small brittle star hitch hickers

 

[Nanook]

Try feeding more. Soft corals will tolerate a little nitrate and phosphate, unlike SPS and LPS. Also, softies like higher light. They will survive with less light, but will thrive with higher light. This is my experience after keeping corals for over 11 years now. Many say softies are low light corals, some are, but most will do great with 400 watt metal halides.

 

[ssminnow81]

my green nepthia wont stop growing after i put it in direct strong flow, i frag it pretty often too

 

[rogerrgr]

aquablast, do you have good individual light reflectors on EACH of the t5 bulbs? T5 bulbs without good individual reflectors does not put all the potential light down into the tank.. I put on some aquaillumination reflectors after using with none and measured par and it was an awesome increase.

 

[aquablast]

Light is an ATI with individual reflectors. Actually it seems like too much light because the palys open bigger when light is out or just the 2 actintics (sp) are on. Star polyp also seems to open more early morning before lights come on. I run the lights from about 12:30 pm to 9:30 pm with blue actintics on first for 1/2 hour and stay on 1/2 hour longer. I also have 2 power heads, totaling about 3000 gph and an eheim 1262 return pump running at about 75% due to overflow capacity. I do dust rock with turkey baster every week hoping that feeds the coral enough.

 

[SushiGirl]

Try feeding more. Soft corals will tolerate a little nitrate and phosphate, unlike SPS and LPS. Also, softies like higher light. They will survive with less light, but will thrive with higher light. This is my experience after keeping corals for over 11 years now. Many say softies are low light corals, some are, but most will do great with 400 watt metal halides.

Our tank is a year old, and we have a LOT of softy growth. We also have nitrates and no algae LOL. We also have 4 T5's, so the light is comparable to yours.