I need some Help - Little to no growth

[gobytron]

Originally Posted by George

There are some good suggestions in this thread. There are also some misinformation here. First of, 8 dKH is perfectly fine, if your test kit is accurate. Recommended alkalinity is between 7-11 dKH. A lighting period of 6 hours using 400W DE is perfectly fine. That's 6 hours of intensive light period. You don't get more than that hours of intensive light period in the tropic seas. I am using 250W for 6 hours and get good growth (For some SPS, they are growing like weed).
For OP, are your corals happy? How is their polyp extension? What kind of corals do you have? Maybe they are just slow growers. Try to find some fast growers, like pink birdsnest or green birdsnest or some digitata and see if they grow at all in your tank.

Keep in mind, these are just suggestions (which is what the OP is looking for) and nothing is written in stone.
Just opinions of other reefers who can draw on their independent experiences to try and provide the OP with some suggestions that may have slipped past them based on their own experiences.

every system is different and to just write off anothers suggestion purely based on your own experiences really isn't helping anyone out here...IMO.

[Parker]

Originally Posted by George

For OP, are your corals happy? How is their polyp extension? What kind of corals do you have? Maybe they are just slow growers. Try to find some fast growers, like pink birdsnest or green birdsnest or some digitata and see if they grow at all in your tank.

All but one seem to be happy, keeping their color, polyp extentsion.

Honestly I'm not much for knowing the names of all the corrals I have, but I do know they they are confrimed fast growers as they came out of Dez's tank.

I have:
A couple of Acros
Red Milli
Red Monti Cap
I think a Slimer Stag

Originally Posted by Parker

What's your thinking behind the increased light cycle? Light longer because I have reduced light output with out actinics, or light longer because I'm not providing light in the Actinic spectrum?

I'm not sure lighting longer just because of the reduced par of not having actinics would be the sollution, I'm putting a lot of light in the tank with the 3ea 400w 14k DE halides no?. I'm willing to try though. I have the retrofit T5's I intended to use for Actinics but I haven't gotten around to installing them yet.

slow groth is not due to the lighting and the higher the K your lights are the more itinics light spectrum they have normaly I have seen 14k's that are yellow. but mostly they tend to have a itinic color or blue color.

I would look at the Mag and CA these are the primary bulding blocks for calsification.

Bill