Not much acro growth

[Darbna]

so I converted my 125 a few months ago to try my run at acro and sps coral. I do small weekly water changes and usually do a. If one once a month. I run a skimmer and carbon and phosphate reactor. I have had a doser running for some time and my alk and cal is pretty stable. Alk at 9 and cal at 450. Little high but everything is colored up pretty good. I have a few colonies and recently added some high end frags. I recently upped my mag based on some info I had from a freind who farms coral. I'm up around 1450. Used to run at 1300. I stepped up feeding every other day now spot feeding reef roids, or frenzy, or reef bugs on rotation. Still not seeing much growth. What can I do to up that game without messing things up? Oh nitrate is usually between 3 and 8 ppm depending on when I test. Phosphate is undetectable. Salinity is 1.026 and ph is 8.1. Initial colonies have been in there for 6 months and still not seeing growth. Let me know your thoughts cause I feel like I'm missing something.

 

[Salty1962]

What are you using for lighting? With your numbers being stable for 6 mths, that's the only limiting factor I can think of. I've had many corals that were healthy and my tank was dialed in and it took several months for them to show noticeable growth. I have a couple that took over a year to show growth and I have to frag them every other month so they won't over grow my tank.

 

[Darbna]

What are you using for lighting? With your numbers being stable for 6 mths, that's the only limiting factor I can think of. I've had many corals that were healthy and my tank was dialed in and it took several months for them to show noticeable growth. I have a couple that took over a year to show growth and I have to frag them every other month so they won't over grow my tank.

I have 2 AI hydra 53 hd.

 

[saifcolors]

My tank 80 cm deep it OK for my tank???

 

[saifcolors]

Hadra 26

 

[Diesel]

As @Salty1962 already mentioned lights can be a limited factor in your case.
How many Hydra 52 HD you run?
Up your white light a bit more, corals need daylight 10K to grow.
When I read through your story I noticed a few minor things but when you put those together it will give you the whole picture.
You Po4 is undetectable.......... Po4 is a nutrients together with No3, if you don't have both in balance it ain't working.
My advice is bring up your Po4, simply put some flake food in the filter sock.

A other factor is flow............. I see only one on the back.
That one might be not enough for all these acro's you have,

Now this what I'm going to tell you is really important and can have nothing to do with all above.
The SPS game is a completely different game, you mentioned that you switch a few months back and loaded your tank up with SPS.
All great and that they doing great in color is a good indication but SPS are slow growing jerks , they don't just give you the growth ppl exspect they do.
Yes there are exceptions but we are not Santa Clause that it will be there overnight.
It takes time and effort to get where you want to be with your growth on SPS.
That said you are doing everything right IMO.
Only thing I didn't see you mention is that you QT your corals and dip them for pest.
Having a pest might also limited your growth.
Doing the inspections as you are on top of it as in monitoring your growth rate by now you should have seen some pest ot unhappy corals.
AEFW can be a present and you don't know it sometimes up to a year and suddenly they are a BIG problem.

At the end it comes down for what you can do further on this point.
My advice is make Po4 detectable up to 0.04 or more but do it slowly.
Split your water changes in two like 15L on Monday and 15 on Friday.
Check you flow.
Relax and sit back and let it happen.
Leave the tank alone.

 

[Darbna]

As @Salty1962 already mentioned lights can be a limited factor in your case.
How many Hydra 52 HD you run?
Up your white light a bit more, corals need daylight 10K to grow.
When I read through your story I noticed a few minor things but when you put those together it will give you the whole picture.
You Po4 is undetectable.......... Po4 is a nutrients together with No3, if you don't have both in balance it ain't working.
My advice is bring up your Po4, simply put some flake food in the filter sock.

A other factor is flow............. I see only one on the back.
That one might be not enough for all these acro's you have,

Now this what I'm going to tell you is really important and can have nothing to do with all above.
The SPS game is a completely different game, you mentioned that you switch a few months back and loaded your tank up with SPS.
All great and that they doing great in color is a good indication but SPS are slow growing ******** , they don't just give you the growth ppl exspect they do.
Yes there are exceptions but we are not Santa Clause that it will be there overnight.
It takes time and effort to get where you want to be with your growth on SPS.
That said you are doing everything right IMO.
Only thing I didn't see you mention is that you QT your corals and dip them for pest.
Having a pest might also limited your growth.
Doing the inspections as you are on top of it as in monitoring your growth rate by now you should have seen some pest ot unhappy corals.
AEFW can be a present and you don't know it sometimes up to a year and suddenly they are a BIG problem.

At the end it comes down for what you can do further on this point.
My advice is make Po4 detectable up to 0.04 or more but do it slowly.
Split your water changes in two like 15L on Monday and 15 on Friday.
Check you flow.
Relax and sit back and let it happen.
Leave the tank alone.

Thanks man. I do have 2 jabeo wavemakers and 2 small gyre pumps which alternate. I also have some real small powerheads on the back closer to the bottom to eliminate detritus build up in some dead spots. I dip all corals prior and the only pest I ever had to date were nudi on Zoa and figure they came in as eggs since they were dipped too. Did some repeated freshwater dips on them and they are fine now. Other than that I'm guessing I will keep feeding every other day and cut back the water changes some.

 

[blazedmasta]

As @Salty1962 already mentioned lights can be a limited factor in your case.
How many Hydra 52 HD you run?
Up your white light a bit more, corals need daylight 10K to grow.
When I read through your story I noticed a few minor things but when you put those together it will give you the whole picture.
You Po4 is undetectable.......... Po4 is a nutrients together with No3, if you don't have both in balance it ain't working.
My advice is bring up your Po4, simply put some flake food in the filter sock.

A other factor is flow............. I see only one on the back.
That one might be not enough for all these acro's you have,

Now this what I'm going to tell you is really important and can have nothing to do with all above.
The SPS game is a completely different game, you mentioned that you switch a few months back and loaded your tank up with SPS.
All great and that they doing great in color is a good indication but SPS are slow growing ******** , they don't just give you the growth ppl exspect they do.
Yes there are exceptions but we are not Santa Clause that it will be there overnight.
It takes time and effort to get where you want to be with your growth on SPS.
That said you are doing everything right IMO.
Only thing I didn't see you mention is that you QT your corals and dip them for pest.
Having a pest might also limited your growth.
Doing the inspections as you are on top of it as in monitoring your growth rate by now you should have seen some pest ot unhappy corals.
AEFW can be a present and you don't know it sometimes up to a year and suddenly they are a BIG problem.

At the end it comes down for what you can do further on this point.
My advice is make Po4 detectable up to 0.04 or more but do it slowly.
Split your water changes in two like 15L on Monday and 15 on Friday.
Check you flow.
Relax and sit back and let it happen.
Leave the tank alone.

Agreed