Corals aren't growing!

[Ashish Patel]

Nutrients are too low.. I would start dosing amino acids daily and gradually (2-3 weeks) remove you biopellets. After this has been removed your nutrients should be detectable enough for the corals. Anything above .2PPM nitrate is fine (but higher is better) and Phosphates above 0.03-0.05 IME is ideal for calcification and avoiding to much algae. Get a few turbo snails and they will keep the rock clean. I have to feed mine nori sheets all the time since they do too good of a job. Your corals have algae in them they need nutrients and bio-pellets while they work its more of a solution if you struggle with high nutrients. Some tanks need biopellets to keep their nitrates stable at 5PPM. You don't have that problem. I choose not to do a bio pellet reactor in fear of causing a bacteria issue should the power go off or the skimmer being turned of overnight. I rather not deal with risky equipment just things that I can't even point to as a failure point. You'll never hear someone tell me my cheato, skimmer or UV crashed my tank, though they certainly can since my nutrients have dropped to 0 few times causing bleaching but I found are easy to manipulate by testing and making adjustments to feeding and reducing or increasing skimmer line

 

[Zagreus]

I have a red sea reefer 350 that has been up and running for 4 months now. All of my rock has turned brown for a month or so now and not sure if this is diatoms or something else. My corals don't seem to happy they aren't really growing at all. I check my levels every few days and everything is in line with where I think it should be. Calcium 400, mag 1350, dkh 8.5, salinity 1.025. Phosphate 0 and nitrates 0. I am also running biopellets as well as an algae scrubber that doesn' grow much algae at all most of the algae is in the display tank. I'e heard you shouldn't run biopellets with having an algae scrubber but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have both. I am just confused with what I'm doing wrong and how I can get growth and color out of my mostly Lps tank

I have a thread on this and I will forward to you later. I'm at lego land right now if you can understand where I'm at mentally lol....You have a really new clean tank that needs to seasoning. This takes time. Is this your first saltwater tank.

@Acox28 check out this thread. I think you will be able to relate and it will help you. I went through a lot of the same stuff. The great news is you have cool fish to look at along the way. If your focusing on LPS once you take that bio pellet reactor offline you should be along the way. Here is what I had to go through before I stopped killing
SPS. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/experienced-acropora-sps-keepers-1-year-help-needed.327336/

 

[EHerbert]

IMO you're doing and expecting too much from a system that isn't seasoned yet. I don't think you mentioned your lighting or if you're using a skimmer. Do your water changes, test your parameters and be patient... at four months you're just coming out of your cycling, especially starting with dead rock. Personally, I'm not one for a lot of additives. Be patient and keep reefing...

 

[tutmatt3]

Lets get an HD pic of your brown rocks. Since you started with dead rock as I did, and they're going brown - keep in mind that it is most likely SOME type of algae/life form, consuming nutrients / etc.
The simplest way to know that it is indeed a lifeform eating away at nutrients is I bet it's only that particular brown on top of your rock, which is the light-facing side.

The bottom is most likely much cleaner, where it sees no light

 

[aquablizz]

I've been experiencing nearly the same thing. I get what could be considered a brown dust on all my substrate and any rock exposed to light. If I turn the rock over it is a bright white.. I've been fighting this for a few months now and so far been a losing battle. My system has been up and running for many years but was a fish only tank.. 6 months ago I decided to add a bunch of new rock to my display tank almost doubling the mass, I also added a fuge, better skimmer, macro and new led lights.. Fast forward a month and everything is coated with a brown dust.. Both my nitrates and phosphates are nearly undetectable along with coralline growing on glass and rock... Fish are doing fine and appear very healthy but I won't consider getting involved with live corals till I can get this figured out.. This brown dust is so topical, even a snail traveling across the substrate or rock leave a bright white trail. If I use a powerhead to blow it all off, within 2 days it is back covering everything... Very disheartening to say the least after spending a lot of money and time to improve the system..

 

[aquablizz]

below is a pic of the snail trail I am referring to in my previous post... the trail will be completely covered with this brown dust within 24-48 hours.. I would greatly appreciate any input.
Blizz

 

[tutmatt3]

Real important question - where do you get your water, or do you make it yourself?
If you make it yourself, what's the TDS, and what type of RODI system do you use to filter out the water. Any chloromines/silicates you may think are causing it?

 

[aquablizz]

Thanks for the comeback.. I use a Spectrapure system and have changed out all the filters in the last two month... Very low TDS... Not sure how to test for Silicates??

 

[Brien]

As others have noted your system is too new and clean to be running bio-pellets and an algae scrubber.

How much are you dosing per day and what method. I found dosing manually was the biggest hinderance to my success early on. If I had to do it over I would have bought a dosing pump and started after 6-months instead of 2-years.

 

[aquablizz]

I don't run bio-pellets or have an Algae scrubber .. also I am not dosing so I assume you response is to the initiator of this thread..

 

[MTBake]

Looks like your new rock needs some time to mature. Adding that much new rock is most likely why you're having a diatom outbreak. It should pass with time.

Tank looks pretty good other than that. I don't think you need the bio pellet reactor but I've never used one and don't see the need on a new or small system. Like others have said, try to get nutrient levels up a little and coral growth should take off.

 

[aquablizz]

what is the best way to get nutrient levels up. pretty sure this is a diatom bloom but it has lasted a few months now... has really trashed the looks of the tank...

appreciate any advise.

Blizz

 

[reeferfoxx]

what is the best way to get nutrient levels up. pretty sure this is a diatom bloom but it has lasted a few months now... has really trashed the looks of the tank...

appreciate any advise.

Blizz

You're hijacking this thead lol. Start up a new one

 

[aquablizz]

Sorry
didn't realize I did.. seemed to be the same exact problem with no growth and a lot of brown Diatom on everything..

hate when that happens..

 

[reeferfoxx]

Sorry
didn't realize I did.. seemed to be the same exact problem with no growth and a lot of brown Diatom on everything..

hate when that happens..

Except your issue is different. You aren't running export medias. Your tank isn't the same age. You don't have the same bio-load. Probably don't perform maintenance on the same day.

 

[Ashish Patel]

what is the best way to get nutrient levels up. pretty sure this is a diatom bloom but it has lasted a few months now... has really trashed the looks of the tank...

appreciate any advise.

Blizz

I have tried everything to increase nutrients but they always stayed low. Recently I found the best way is to manipulated the skimmer line. IME overfeeding just feeds snails, bristle worms, and aiptasia), or dose nutrients is risky since it can cause algae issue for someone not experienced enough to know how nutrients work in a new system (me). If you have a good bio load already and feeding them a decent amount of food try bringing your skimmer line down, monitor your skim-mate amount from the past (if its wet skimmate its pulling out nutrients fast, If its dark its leaving nutrients in the tank), and test your phosphates /nitrates often.

I replaced a air silencer (noisy RO silencer to Skimz silencer) that was not producing enough skimmate and I've tested Phosphates over 25 times in the past 1 months and shocked to see how much it fluctuated. I've since had to go back to the old silencer and reduced it significantly and now get stable readings.

Reducing nutrient export (GFO, pellets, skimmer line, etc) will increase nutrients pretty fast. In a newer tank you do not need access food and waste especially since new organisms When they are close to 0 I dose acropower to supplement feed them. When nutrients are high I don't dose aminos. last 7 days my nitrates are .2-.5 and phosphates .02-0.05 and now confident I don't have to test more than 1 time per week. The best part I know the range of Phosphates based on the film of algae growing on the glass on a daily basis, cool stuff

 

[Guy Paul]

Hello, I kind of read through this thread but I thought maybe I’d post my own situation for any advice if I may. I have a 90 gallon mixed reef tank, it’s stocked pretty heavily with all different types of coral. Everything seems to be growing slower than anything else on earth, or not at all. Some things definitely have some white tips, but they just remain that way. Somethings that are supposed to grow/spread fast aren’t doing anything at all, green slimers, zoas, even gsp. Everything looks great color wise and polyping super hard, just no growth. Any help would be huge, thanks!

Cal 420-450
Alk 8-9
Mag I don’t check
Nitrate and phosphate read 0 but I test with API so I don’t get low range results
Dose with fuel
20 percent water changes energy 2 weeks
Salinity 1.025
2 1350 gph power heads plus dual return
150w metal halides 14k with 4 t5s
Temp 78-80