Do Softies(Leathers) grow slower in my tank because........

[Canadian Man]

Well here is a good topic for discussion.

Background;
I remember my first coral I purchased 1year and 11 months ago(which I no longer have because it was sold) and it was a leather coral. It showed very slow growth in the time that I had it (about 1year and 4 months).
About 6 months ago I picked up a HUGE finger leather coral(pics on my website which you can see the huge leather and the one I sold which is the smaller one) It has showed almost no growth in the time that I have had it. I should also mention that my lighting change made no obvious diffrence in coral growth. I started off with 8no bulbs then 7 OD bulbs then to halide(2x 250w Iwasaki's).

So my question is do softies grow slower in my tank or other peoples tanks that use a skimmer, carbon, refugium and frequent waterchanges?
I suppose this would have to do with dissolved organics but I don't know of any way of testing this.

In my tank I use all of the above mentioned things, frequent waterchanges, carbon 24/7, large skimmer, and refugium.

Let's have a discussion not a flame session. I have been thinking about this topic lots latley(yes I guess I am a nerd )

[CHEAPREEF]

Just for reference i use a oversized skimmer and do very little water changes. I have a fudge, or will have and have always had in the past. And i don't use carbon very often. I picked up a toadstool frag from Simon about 2 months ago, yesterday i noticed it's splitting. And the finger leathers that i have had for a year or so have qaudruapled in size. What i'm saying is maybe it's the carbon or maybe it's the water changes, or maybe i have no idea what i'm talking about. But that's my story.

Clinton

[EmilyB]

It is apparently tough to get a good SPS/LPS/Softie combo tank.

The SPS of course want the purest of water, and lots of flow. The others like a bit more nutrient in their water I think, and some like a lower current.

Then there is light. A lot of softies won't thrive in a highly lit SPS tank.

That said, my tank was a softie LPS tank and I really liked it. I'm kind of regretting trying to make it something else. It's also going through a change now that I have removed so many of the LPS, more algae and a phosphate reading I've never had in four years. I don't know if that is why.

But I'm glad for your post, because now something I have been struggling with is clear to me. I don't want SPS in my 155g. It was fine the way it was......

Okay guys bring my corals back.....

[MitchM]

Jon, I do think it's possible to have too clean water in a reeftank. Did you get that devil's hand from Deb? If so, it's probably off of mine a couple of years ago. The original was about the size of a person's fist, and all colonies together now are easily 10 times the size of that. That's over about 4 or 5 years, I think. Right now I have 2 separate colonies of that particular coral, one under my 250w MH, and the other under NO florescents. The MH one is growing faster than the one under the florescents. I run no carbon and rarely do water changes.
You'll have to check with Deb as far as how well it grew for her.

Getting back to the water cleanliness thing, maybe there's something there that has to do with the balance of nutrients that the corals need in order to thrive. I haven't finished the MACO course readings yet, but it was starting to address a corals' acquisition of nutrients.

(....maybe if someone has finished the course readings, they could contribute here............?)

Mitch

[AJ_77]

Originally Posted by EmilyB

It is apparently tough to get a good SPS/LPS/Softie combo tank.

Even though we sometimes see these kinds of tanks in photo galleries, it must be a bugger to reach that balance. Or can it be just a fluke, tossing a variety of things in over time? I'll mention Kari's tank again, because it's a healthy system with good diversity. The Blastomussa that fell into the Turbinaria made sort of a "Coral Condo" effect that is really cool...

But I know what you mean about liking your tank the way it is.

Okay guys bring my corals back.....

You got room for them all???

[Canadian Man]

Yes Mitch I got the Devil's hand from Deb. I don't know if you remember but it's the one of the plate size piece of rock. I think you got the toadstool at the same time?

I have pics of the leather I sold from the beginning and the end and there is noticeable growth but it's not as much as I would have expected in over a year. It went from somewhere in the range of 7 fingers to 14 or so and alot thicker.

[Bob I]

When the subject was first proposed, I looked at my Sprung corals book to see if there were different requirement for softies, or stony corals. I see no real difference. The foods listed for almost all corals are; Light, Phytoplankton, Zooplankton, Marine Snow, Fish feces. Thus if your tank is too clean, it should affect ALL corals not just softies. I do almost no water changes, but I use Dick Boyd's Chemipure in my two larger tanks. I do add freeze dried phytoplankton often. The only real difference is the lighting. I use only PC lighting. I don't have a lot of SPS corals, but those I have seem to grow fairly well. My softies do grow quite a bit better. That is about all I can add to this discussion.