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 )