Growth Problems

[Solitaryensis]

Hi everyone:

I've had my tank up for about a year now (I transferred from a 10 gallon that was about a year old as well) and during the entire time have struggled with growth. The softies have started to take off recently but its still hit or miss. For example, I have a patch of GSP (see bottom left corner) that has not grown for 2 years! I have not lost any corals during this time and polyp extension and color seems to be fine.

I've always noticed that my euphyllia and dendro skeletons are covered in coralline and it made me wonder if this is somehow inhibiting growth. Regardless, I would appreciate some input!

Params:

SG: 1.026
Calcium: ~400
Alk: ~8
Nitrate: ~.5
Phosphate: ~.02
Temp: 78

 

[Crabs McJones]

What intensity are you running those kessils at? Your tank looks beautiful by the way

 

[trustmeimalawyer]

Thank you. I’m happy with the way the tank looks but just really frustrated with lack of growth. I run my kessils at max 60% for a 4 hour period. The rest of the 10 hour photo period is ramp up and down.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Thank you. I’m happy with the way the tank looks but just really frustrated with lack of growth. I run my kessils at max 60% for a 4 hour period. The rest of the 10 hour photo period is ramp up and down.

Do you have access to a par meter at all? You might be able to turn your lights up a bit more being that they're the 160s. I know with my tank I ran my pair of a360s at 70% and was getting between 250 to 300 par. But those are more powerful. You might be able to crank yours up to 80. But I wouldn't recommend without either a par meter to see how much your putting out. Or if you do turn it up do it very slowly over time. 5% a week

 

[Denisk]

Let me start off with that you have a beautiful tank!! I also have a lps/softie tank and growth was fairly slow at the beginning stages. My recommendations is you need to bring up your nitrates and phosphates. .5 nitrates and .02 phosphate isn’t enough in my opinion for a tank of lps/softies.

Also it would be helpful for some extra information about your tank. Things like do you skim 24/7. Do you run carbon? How often do you do water changes and how large?

 

[Jeepguy242]

What’s your ph

 

[NS Mike D]

NO3 nd PO4 are in line with color over growth according the to the target numbers Red Sea uses in their product lines. I would think we would prefer color over growth in a nano as corals can easily get grow too fast - think bonsai.


tank looks great, color is popping. numbers look good. if it were my tank, I wouldn't change a thing.