What Made the Softies Grow so Quickly

[mocha 75]

For the past couple of months my soft corals have stayed the same size. No noticeable growth except for a paly I feed small food pellets.

Twice a week I feed the tank fish food pellets soaked in selcon, reef roids and bright well’s gold phyto.

I went on vacation for four days. When I returned everything has exploded in growth. Zoas, a Kenya tree and some clove polyps.

I’m trying to figure out what caused the explosion. My thinking is I’m doing something that when I stopped doing it turned out to be a good thing.

I do dose Brightwell nitrate. The tank is very heavily populated w macros and they bottom my nitrate out. But I only started adding nitrate recently. My nitrate levels tend to be zero, which is why I’m dosing.

I do two capfuls of brightwell mg. My mg tends to be low. My mg tends to stick around 1095, which is why I dose. Post dose mg is 1,125–1,140.

I dose nitrate daily and mg daily. My understanding is that my mg is being consumed heavily by the macros and the coralline.

The corals were all purchased at the start of Sept. I only began dosing mg this month.

Could it be the lack of daily mg dosing? Did the dosing of nitrate help the corals?

Whatever happened I’m pleased but trying to find out the secret sauce and replicate it.

 

[mocha 75]

For the past couple of months my soft corals have stayed the same size. No noticeable growth except for a paly I feed small food pellets.

Twice a week I feed the tank fish food pellets soaked in selcon, reef roids and bright well’s gold phyto.

I went on vacation for four days. When I returned everything has exploded in growth. Zoas, a Kenya tree and some clove polyps.

I’m trying to figure out what caused the explosion. My thinking is I’m doing something that when I stopped doing it turned out to be a good thing.

I do dose Brightwell nitrate. The tank is very heavily populated w macros and they bottom my nitrate out. But I only started adding nitrate recently. My nitrate levels tend to be zero, which is why I’m dosing.

I do two capfuls of brightwell mg. My mg tends to be low. My mg tends to stick around 1095, which is why I dose. Post dose mg is 1,125–1,140.

I dose nitrate daily and mg daily. My understanding is that my mg is being consumed heavily by the macros and the coralline.

The corals were all purchased at the start of Sept. I only began dosing mg this month.

Could it be the lack of daily mg dosing? Did the dosing of nitrate help the corals?

Whatever happened I’m pleased but trying to find out the secret sauce and replicate it.

I’m using Seifert to measure mg and api to measure nitrate.

 

[mfinn]

If it's a full on softy tank, cut back on all that extra dosing.
You really don't need it, and the lack of doing it while you were gone shows it.

 

[Poseidon03]

I'd put money on either everything settling in or you don't see the growth every day compared to 4 days. Pictures help a lot with this. It's hard to see the day to day growth, but easy to see week to week or month to month.

Why is your mg so low? How's your salinity? With it that low, I would not be surprised if you have low salinity.

 

[mocha 75]

Salinity is 1.025. Just tested it to be sure.

According to chat gpt, which I take w a semi grain of salt, it’s saying the macros and the coralline are eating the mg.

My calcium (Seifert test) is 365.

Just tested nitrate. 0%.

Maybe I need to up my feeding