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[Ruth]

Originally Posted by TheReefGeek

All the algae in my tank is gone, and if there are any patches my foxface and tang clean it up in no time. I feed them with algae from the fuge actually, because there is so little algae in my display.

Then where are the pictures you keep saying you will post when your algae is gone - looks like it is!

[StirCrazy]

I think everyone is missing the point, it doesn't take a higher nutrient level in the water to grow softies, I have grown them at high rates of growth in very nutrient lacking water, it takes high light, good water quality, and food, just like any other coral.

Now there are two ways to get the food, 1 have a high level of nutrients in your water and fight with algae unless you can find the perfect level of nutrients that the softies can have just enuf but it isn't enuf for algae.

Or you can set up a nutrient free system with higher flow and aggressive skimming. Now this is the part where most people get confused, just having a skimmer doesn't cut this set up, you need to be able to severally over skim. the idea behind this one is that you feed your corals a lot and your skimmer can remove the un eaten food before it breaks down and turns into algae fuel. another part of this is water flow, you have to have enuf so that you have now dead spots in the tank, and that it will keep all the junk suspended so the skimmer can remove it, unfortunately this usually means having to have a bare bottom tank.

Almost all of us operate somewhere between these two ideals, therefor we have algae and other problems. I have been moving to-wards the latter set up for about two years now, increasing tank flow, removing the sand bed, increasing flow again, and finally building my new skimmer which should be able to handle a tank 10X bigger than whats it is going to be used on.

so in my mind anyone who says you need nutrient rich water for softies, or that they do better under lower lighting, either honestly doesn't know any better or doesn't want to spend the money to upgrade lighting/equipment

Steve

[TheReefGeek]

I still think a higher nutrient tank will grow softies faster. Yes you can get them to grow well by feeding lots, and skimming lots, but I think they would grow faster if you fed lots, and skimmed less.

I feed a LOT, but because of my refugium and really heavy skimming, the softies don't get a chance to feed all the time like they did when my tank crashed an there was lots of nutrients available.

[Reefer Rob]

Is it just my tank or doesn't high nutrient + low light = brown corals. My softies look much better under high light with nitrates near 0 than they did at 20 ppm. IMO softies grow like weeds anyway.

Rob

[TheReefGeek]

Where did low light come from?

Under high lighting, the look of my corals didn't change between having high or low nutrients, just the growth was stunted once the nutrients were gone.

When I had high nutrients, my xenia went nuts, and my kenya tree dropped limbs to propagate almost every day. Now, the kenya tree has stopped dropping limbs, and the xenia are not spreading anymore.

[danny zubot]

I think we need to consider the benifits of having softies even is SPS dominated systems. They act as nutrient sponges much like the various common macros we used for nutrient export. I have no macros in my tank, but enough softies to export enough nutrients to leave my tank algae free. IMO it is a symbiotic relationship between vastly different corals, they work well together.

[Reefer Rob]

I thought that in a high nutreint environment the corals can reach a point where they are unable regulate their zooxanthellae populations due to nitrates being so high they defuse into the coral. This causes an over population of zooxanthellae, which acually stesses the animal slowing down it's growth. I thought I read this somewhere, I could be wrong

Rob

[TheReefGeek]

Could be, but that would be a lot higher than the levesl we are talking about then.