SPS Growth Puzzle

[chris88]

what kind of lighting? up your water changes and bring your calcium and mag up. I find growth accelerates for me when my cal is 440ppm and my mag is 1400ppm. Also feeding helps so much i terms of growth but sometimes can be detremental to the color of the corals because of the increased nutrients.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by chris88

what kind of lighting? up your water changes and bring your calcium and mag up. I find growth accelerates for me when my cal is 440ppm and my mag is 1400ppm. Also feeding helps so much i terms of growth but sometimes can be detremental to the color of the corals because of the increased nutrients.

Lighting above. I've found that anything over 380 for Ca is fine, as long as it's maintained. I use a big a$$ Ca reactor that keeps it about 400. I don't worry about Mg, but did test it a couple of times and it was 1400ish. My previous setup used IO and no supplements other than reactor.
I never found feeding to help or hinder, other than brown out the corals if I over did it. I can see feeding helping a bit, but this I think is more serious. For example, I have a frag that I mounted 2 years ago, 2 inches long. It encrusted, and nothing since. That's just wrong

[shrimpchips]

How far off are the lights? Maybe you're getting some photoinhibition going on?

[chris88]

it's not the lighting. I get 1-2 inches of growth in my sps per month. I can only tell you what works for me. Calcium above 420ppm and if i dont add mag often then growth stops. IO salt hasa very low mag and coraline algae just rapes the stuff. I feed with coral frenzy and it really does help for growth. I feed once a week maybe twice if i am bored. Its not going to be a one thing fix, its probably a mix a few things added together that is hampering growth.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by shrimpchips

How far off are the lights? Maybe you're getting some photoinhibition going on?

I thought that might be happening, so swapped in a set of used radiums for 2 months, no change.

[lorenz0]

What type of corals are we talking about? like are they maricultured corals or frags from someone else?

from my experience, i won't be buying to many maricultured corals anymore. mostly because of the fact that they just don't grow for me compared to frags from snappy, fishytime, wickedfrags and so on. All they did was encrust and maybe got an inche out of one in a year while my frags are now colony size on 6-8 months.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

What type of corals are we talking about? like are they maricultured corals or frags from someone else?

.

I've got frags from Christy, Snappy, Denis, etc, all the same. And not species specific. My birdsnest has only grown slightly, where compared to the same coral in a previous tank it grew like crazy. My caps are not too bad, some growth, but not what should be for 2 years. Even digitata is slow growing.

[muck]

Come on Brad... Warez da Photos Man.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by muck

Come on Brad... Warez da Photos Man.

Seriously, I can't stand to even take pics!! I posted one last year, it's still the same

I'm close to tearing down, cleaning everything, getting new rock and undertank sump and then re-add my frags. Some are not doing too terrible, but compared to what I used to get, it's pretty sad...

What gets me is I'm doing all I used to do with the same equipment, just different tank/sump and plumbing. This makes me think maybe contamination?? I dunno, it's frustrating...

[PoonTang]

Brad
Interestingly enough I have been reading alot about coral growth etc lately due to my own coral issues. Growth is directly related to food and not light. Light will keep them alive but they wont grow much. Food is where they get all of their extra energy from that allows them to grow. The most important food item seems to be zooplankton and without a sandbed you would have much less of it in your tank. Without a sandbed tho you should be able to feed the hell out of your tank without running into nutrient issues.
I dont know what to suggest for food for you, I havnt got that far yet