Coral growth in 3 months time
- Thread starter twiggyb
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SunnyX
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Excellent growth! It is very hard to ID corals when they are that small, but the last one appears to be an Idaho Grape monti. From the pictures it looks like you are running a lower kelvin bulb. Try adding some blue supplementation now to bring out more of the colors. Once the corals have grown into colonies it would be best to chancge to main bulbs to a higher kelvin, such as 14K,20K,Radium. This way, you will regulate and slow down the growth while coloring up the corals. I did this back on my old 225 In wall reef. I ran XM 10k's in order to grow the corals out. After a year I switched over o XM 20k's in order to color up the colonies.
Good luck, it looks like you are doing something right.
Good luck, it looks like you are doing something right.
xraided199
Active Member
great great work...looks like they are very happy. i totally agree with sonny as well, and i tell my friends this all the time, since they don't own a "coral-growing" business or store, they don't need to speed up growth once the corals hit a certain size. what you do want though is color. and a higher K bulb will certainly do that. i switched to T5 then to LED to get the color in my tank, but a higher K halide will do it too, and still provide good growth. good luck with the tank, those pieces look great!
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twiggyb
Active Member
Sunny,thanks, compliments from a vet like you is nice! The lights that are on there now are the Ecoxotic panorama fixtures with four blue stunner strips that put out blue light, but I don't have the reflectors on them. I'm in the process of putting together a 225g at the moment. Any suggestions on plumbing, flow, lights, etc.?
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twiggyb
Active Member
Thanks xraided. U get pretty good color with my LEDs, just not te same as MH. The colors are little faded on the sps because of a nitrate spike I had a month ago from overfeeding the fish. It's hard to maintain low nitrates with no skimmer lol.
xraided199
Active Member
oh my bad on that, didn't realize you were runnin LEDs. yeah nitrates and no skimmer will do that to you, im extremely impressed that you get that kind of look in your tank with no skimmer, nice job!
xraided199
Active Member
oh and the last acro you have posted there looks like my fav all time piece: mr GARF bonsai himself.
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twiggyb
Active Member
Thanks, all it takes is 15g wc a week, no more than two frozen cubes a day, watch the calcium and dose when needed, and a consistency of all the above and everything works out, for me anyways 
Actinics come on at 7:45am and 8am, main lights at 8:30am, feed at 9am then at 8pm, main lights go off at 8:30pm actinics go off at 9 and 9:30pm That's my routine every day.
Actinics come on at 7:45am and 8am, main lights at 8:30am, feed at 9am then at 8pm, main lights go off at 8:30pm actinics go off at 9 and 9:30pm That's my routine every day.
