Little to no soft coral growth

[Joey.S]

Hey everyone hope you’re all doing very well,

My softie dominant 90 gallon has been running for 8 months now. And I’ve gotten little to no coral growth during that time. It’s mainly a leather dominant reef with some zoas and a Vargas cespitularia, and out of the 8 corals I have in there now I would say the cespitularia and one devils hand have grown quite a significant amount in those 7-8 months. But all the other sarcophytons and sinularia in the system have gotten no growth at all since I got them 8 months ago.

I’ve tried a lot of things to solve this issue. I’ve done 10% water changes every 2 weeks, I tried 2 part dosing with B Ionic but I’m not completely in check of how to dose 2 part efficiently. I just used the alk and cal calculator and dosed the recommended amount my system needed. But the problem with that was I could never keep my alk as stable as I wanted it to be so I stopped, this was well over a month ago.

Flow in the system has always been good. I know leathers enjoy higher flow and that’s what I’ve provided them since the beginning. But have never seen any noticeable growth at all. They just seem to constantly shed still even with the increased flow.

Another thing I’ve tried to do is lower my lighting on my LED, which is a 300W Viparspectra black box. I’ve read that the constant shedding of the leathers could be a result of too much light and they’re constantly shedding their burnt skin.

The last thing I’m trying is actually feeding the corals once to twice a week, I know they could benefit greatly from it. I feed them reef roids, mainly to keep the nitrates higher (around 10) because they like ‘dirtier’ water and I did have an issue with nitrates being under 5 ppm for months so maybe that could’ve been the reason for lack of growth. I’ve only recently brought them to around 10 since I started feeding roids. Although with this I can’t say much about because I’ve only started doing this around 1 week ago.

Thanks for reading everyone I’m sorry for the long rant I just wanted to explain everything and hopefully I can get better success in the future, thanks a lot everyone.

Tank params
Salinity : 1.023-1.025
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 0
Nitrate : 5-10
Phos : Undetectable
Alk : Around 10 when last tested
Cal : 450
Mag : 1350

 

[ArielUnderwater]

What are you running your lights at?

 

[Joey.S]

What are you running your lights at?

I use to run 75% blues 30% whites. Now I run 30% blues 10% whites.

 

[Musovski]

i had the same problem on my 65. i used chinese black box led's and was stunned on growth for about 6 months. i decided to switch it up and got AI Prime's and they began to grow... weird since only thing that changed was light. However, i used the chinese led on my nano and everything is booming.

have you ever gone into testing more than just the regular checked parameters? maybe some trace elements are being needed that the water changes aren't replenishing enough of?

Also, do you vacuum your sand bed?

 

[blasterman]

Phos undetectable.

There's likely your problem. Heavy filter feeders can get what they need from reef roids but the rest aren't going to do anything.

 

[Joey.S]

i had the same problem on my 65. i used chinese black box led's and was stunned on growth for about 6 months. i decided to switch it up and got AI Prime's and they began to grow... weird since only thing that changed was light. However, i used the chinese led on my nano and everything is booming.

have you ever gone into testing more than just the regular checked parameters? maybe some trace elements are being needed that the water changes aren't replenishing enough of?

Also, do you vacuum your sand bed?

I was actually going to go with AI Primes for my 90 but ended up not because I thought the spectrum wasn’t going to be bright enough for the size tank. And no I haven’t checked other trace elements other than the main ones. And also no I don’t vacuum the sand bed.

 

[Davey-Jones’-Locker]

I had the same problem with almost the exact same system (75 gallon rimless with black box leds). I was religious about 10% weekly water changes and had terrible growth. After a year I finally let the water get a bit “dirty” and went to monthly 10-20% water changes, depending on NO3 PO4 levels. My corals loved the nutrients and exploded with growth after that.

 

[Joey.S]

Phos undetectable.

There's likely your problem. Heavy filter feeders can get what they need from reef roids but the rest aren't going to do anything.

What is the best way to raise phos? My phos levels have been undetectable since the start honestly. I try and feed more too on top of roids.

 

[Davey-Jones’-Locker]

Also I run my black boxes 18” off the water @ 100% blues and 40% whites. Blues come on at 9am, whites at 12pm. Whites off at 7 pm, blues off at 9 pm

 

[Musovski]

I was actually going to go with AI Primes for my 90 but ended up not because I thought the spectrum wasn’t going to be bright enough for the size tank. And no I haven’t checked other trace elements other than the main ones. And also no I don’t vacuum the sand bed.

yeah trace elements helped me out. Also do you top off with ro/di?

 

[Joey.S]

I had the same problem with almost the exact same system (75 gallon rimless with black box leds). I was religious about 10% weekly water changes and had terrible growth. After a year I finally let the water get a bit “dirty” and went to monthly 10-20% water changes, depending on NO3 PO4 levels. My corals loved the nutrients and exploded with growth after that.

Are my light settings too low now, cause we seem to have had the same system. And should I cut the water changes from weekly to monthly? Won’t that effect alk/cal?

 

[Joey.S]

yeah trace elements helped me out. Also do you top off with ro/di?

Yes I do.

 

[Musovski]

Yes I do.

ok. well as for raising your phos. Feed more, things such as nori have loads of phos in it. now keep in mind, introducing NO3 and PO4 into the tank together make for competition for food for them soft corals. Algae will become a thing so a strong CuC will be needed. There is a ratio for NO3 to PO4. i always had it at like 30-40 nitrate and almost 1 PO4 but had GHA everywhere.

Ideally the ratio would be like 0.03 ppm of phosphate and something like 15-20 of nitrate.

 

[Musovski]

Also, try dosing some phyto, things that these filter feeders can enjoy on

You can also follow Redfield Ratio

 

[danieyella]

Couple things... I switched out my black boxes for reefbreeders and realized the black boxes have a ton of hot spots that weren't doing my softies any favors.

Also as mentioned already, dirty up a little bit. I stopped doing water changes and do moonshine method to dose traces. (but there's a bunch of other ways to replenish that). I also added more fish.

 

[Musovski]

just be careful not to overdose the tank with too much nutrients at once, the tank will/can go into this shock period.

 

[Red_Beard]

Just to throw it out there, i have had issues with some softies looking sad and not growing much that dosing iodide really helped.

 

[Joey.S]

Okay thanks so much everyone. I will take note to all of these. The best as always

 

[Davey-Jones’-Locker]

Are my light settings too low now, cause we seem to have had the same system. And should I cut the water changes from weekly to monthly? Won’t that effect alk/cal?

The only way to know if your lights are turned down too low is to rent a PAR meter. I was able to tune my lights, map out the PAR levels in my entire tank and place each type of coral in the proper area. I would suggest cutting down on the water changes and dose 2 part to keep Alk and Cal up.

 

[Joey.S]

The only way to know if your lights are turned down too low is to rent a PAR meter. I was able to tune my lights, map out the PAR levels in my entire tank and place each type of coral in the proper area. I would suggest cutting down on the water changes and dose 2 part to keep Alk and Cal up.

So would 10% monthly be okay? As well as with the 2 part? Or no water changes at all?