Ideal water parameters for Soft Coral?

Keiran · Nov 30, 2019

Hi all
I did a title search for "water parameters for Soft Corals" but to no avail.
So for those of you who have successfully grown and maintained your Soft Corals, what are your water parameters? What have you learnt?
Thanks in advance

Auquanut · Nov 30, 2019

Hi. Welcome to the party! I keep a mixed reef. My perams ar: Alk 8.9ish, Calc 440, SG 1.026, No3 10 to 15, PO4 .05. When I was just keeping softies and LPS, I let my nitrate run higher. I'd understood that softies prefer a "dirtier" tank. When I started adding acro's and I brought down my nitrates, the softies did fine and even seemed to do better. In general, I think most softies are pretty forgiving. As long as you keep some detectable nitrate and phosphate, lighting and flow will be a more determining factor in growth. Just my opinion.

Wolf89 · Nov 30, 2019

Same as any other parameters for reef tanks! Just less flow and a bit more nitrates

MixedFruitBasket · Nov 30, 2019

My tank is growing it's best at 40ppm nitrates. Everything I have has taken off recently and I've had to scramble to mount it so it won't grow to the frag trays.

Keiran · Nov 30, 2019

MixedFruitBasket said:
My tank is growing it's best at 40ppm nitrates. Everything I have has taken off recently and I've had to scramble to mount it so it won't grow to the frag trays.

Wow that's high! How about your phosphate?

MixedFruitBasket · Dec 1, 2019

Keiran said:
Wow that's high! How about your phosphate?

I haven't checked my phosphates in a while. And my nitrates really aren't that high.
Richard Ross addresses these topics at a couple of MACNA panels. and

MixedFruitBasket · Dec 1, 2019

P.s. It's almost impossible for me not to have high nitrates given my tank occupants. I feed a tremendous amount of phytoplankton daily because I have many NPS, gorgs, and other feeding softies. And I only have about 90 gallons worth of water buffer. They use nitrate in phytoplankton cultures to grow it.
I used to chase numbers and it was miserable. Now I watch the tank and if it's happy I don't change anything. I also do almost daily 5% water changes.