Hi, I had major success over the years but now I'm stumped. My tank is about 1.5 years running. With the same recipe as my past tanks. 250w MH + Blue plus T5's. It is preforming similar to the Brs 160. All fine except slooow growth. I did use dead marco rock to start this one seeded with a few LR. So there is actually no point in looking into my set up on paper its solid aside from the lack of LR at start up.
Was there an addition or change in equipment/ practices that made a stagnant growth deal take off for you? What was it? Thank you
Feeding. I started dosing red sea AB + and spot feeding roids and there was an instant explosion in growth in a 6 month tank. Zoas specifically. If you feed them they will grow there is little doubt about that. The first time I dosed 20ml of AB I actually watched all my softies puff up in response.
I suspect in older tanks with better base bialogics the reaction may be less but maybe woth a shot for your 1.5 year.
I dose acro power, and have had great success. I have good to great growth on most all my corals. I also direct dose reef roids 1-2 times a month. The last thing I do which I believe really helps is aggressive water changes with quality salt. 10% twice a month.
I was dosing AB+ but always ended up with cyano, went to easyreefs booster, and easySPS. Phosphates actually dropped and all coral loves it. I have also seen a positive boost in copepods. What I like about dosing it throughout the day is the polyp extension is always great.
I agree the " base biology " mising by using mostly dry rock is a real factor. Im just surprised how long that effect continues. Visually the rocks are full of creatures and coraline now. To avoid aptasia and nuisance algae. The price might well be a very long time to get the tank in gear...
So I just started doing this but in raising nitrates and lightly dosing phosphate I’ve seen many corals seem to like it better as I was having troubles keeping any levels readable.
In general IMO i’ve always felt like food (maybe now it’s called nutrition?) is the limiting factor in our tanks just because of the abundance of food in the ocean that we can’t really recreate
Brightwell aminos, benepets, (now oyster feast) helped with the growth. Another thing to look at is flow, if your corals grew then restricted each other’s flow, that could cause a decreased growth.
I've experienced 3 things in the last yr and a half that seem to have triggered growth breakthroughs.
1. I bought LARGER FRAGS. I went back and looked at some old tank photos from 2008 a while back and was shocked at how big some of the frags I use to buy actually were compared to now. I wouldn't call it an experiment but I can tell you for the next mo, I made it a point to only buy well encrusted large frags like what use to be common. I have to say, the difference is night an day. There are nubs I bought shortly prior to these larger frags that have just now encrusted the frag plugs while vertical branches have exploded on some of the larger ones.
2.I put a CO2 scrubber online and ran the air line to my ozone generator outdoors. I'll admit I am super skeptical that the increased Alk demand I saw from this was due to growth alone but I did and continue to see faster growth as a result of having the scrubber online.
3. I increased my feeding but perhaps more importantly I increased my bioload. I think this is a less talked about constraint of starting a tank with dry rock.
I kept all my rock from my last system in dry storage for nearly 7yrs prior to starting my current setup. From what I can tell the biodiversity and level of bound P04 have to both reach a steady state that is within range of properly supporting the corals.
For the first 1.5yrs I had a hard time adding fish without introducing swings/imbalances between N03/PO4/excessively high nutrient levels.
I fed coral food but didn't get the pop in growth to what I remembered back when it was normal to add fish until the Tang Police gave you grief. This yr I was finally able to add a considerable number of fish and growth since then has been more than significant.
I'm sure some noob that has learned everything there is to know since the beginning of the Summer will poke a bunch of holes in this so take it for what its worth.
Without knowing more about your tank it’s a shot in the dark based on what worked for different setups. I will say that my most recent tank that I set up (now 2 years old) I did with dry rock and live sand. It wasn’t until just a few months ago that things really started to take off despite not changing anything with my maintenance or parameters etc. I will say that a mature system goes a long way in SPS success. This is why I will never set up a tank with dry rock again, I just don’t want to deal with the wait for maturity and the lack of all the helpful biodiversity that creates a stable ecosystem. With all that said I would guess you are right on the cusp of an explosion of growth at the 1.5 year mark if everything else looks good. I will say that I love the heavy in heavy out method of feeding and export. My tank loves it too. I feed 5 times per day with a mix of different pellet, powdered and frozen foods and I have practically undetectable N/P which I think has been working well for my reef. Another thing to keep an eye on is pH. Despite what is sometimes said, pH matters. And in my case I had a pretty low pH and putting in measures to address it has worked well for me. I can clearly see an increase in Alk uptake with the windows open during this cool front and I have some corals that look like they need a shave they are so fuzzy. Part of it may be waiting it out or there may be some small tweaks that could benefit you like the ones I listed. At the end of the day if you corals are healthy I’ve learned you can do more harm the good by messing around too much. I’d love to see your tank!
I recently started using kalkwasser again. Not sure why I ever stopped, too simple and cheap I guess. Anyways, my little Battlecorals frags have awakened. I'm guessing it's from the bump in pH.
If you have competent parameters, stability and good lighting, you just have to wait - it sounds like you have all of these things. Small frags are most of the problem. Even if they double in size every few months, it is not as much fun when the double from a small booger to a normal booger as it is when they go from 4 inches to 8 inches.
Improved my regular maintenance and stopped tinkering so much. Just gave things time to relax and adjust. Coral has adaptable ranges, sometimes you just have to give it time to settle in.
