Little to no soft coral growth

[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.

Also I’m not really familiar with effectively dosing 2 part. I do have B Ionic both alk and cal solutions. What would be the easiest approach to starting out dosing 2 part? Thank you

 

[TheWB]

Why are you dosing Cal and Alk? You said this is a softy dominated system with 8 corals in a 90 gallon tank. What is using up Cal and Alk that you need to dose it back? Water changes should handle this pretty easily. What parameters is your salt mix supposed to mix to? What is the Alk dropping to that you’re dosing back up? Do you have a lot of coralline growth? How many fish do you have and how much do you feed them? Just trying to get a sense of what you have going on there.

 

[Joey.S]

Why are you dosing Cal and Alk? You said this is a softy dominated system with 8 corals in a 90 gallon tank. What is using up Cal and Alk that you need to dose it back? Water changes should handle this pretty easily. What parameters is your salt mix supposed to mix to? What is the Alk dropping to that you’re dosing back up? Do you have a lot of coralline growth? How many fish do you have and how much do you feed them? Just trying to get a sense of what you have going on there.

I haven’t dosed anything in a long time due to the confusion. When I was testing alk everyday the consumption varied quite a lot. Sometimes the tank consumed .4 dkh overnight and then the following night it consumed .6 dkh. I could never get it stable so I stopped. My salt mix is Red Sea Pro. Which at 34 ppt mixes at 11.5 dkh, 450 cal, 1350 mag. For the tank being 8 months I have gotten quite a bit of coraline growth. I got 7 fish in the system. I feed LRS frozen in the morning and night, and sea veggie clip for the tangs during the afternoon sometime.

 

[TheWB]

I haven’t dosed anything in a long time due to the confusion. When I was testing alk everyday the consumption varied quite a lot. Sometimes the tank consumed .4 dkh overnight and then the following night it consumed .6 dkh. I could never get it stable so I stopped. My salt mix is Red Sea Pro. Which at 34 ppt mixes at 11.5 dkh, 450 cal, 1350 mag. For the tank being 8 months I have gotten quite a bit of coraline growth. I got 7 fish in the system. I feed LRS frozen in the morning and night, and sea veggie clip for the tangs during the afternoon sometime.

It’s interesting that you have no PO4 and no growth of softies with 7 fish, including tangs, providing nutrients. Sounds like your filtration is effective. I think you could stand to dirty up your water a little bit and see what happens. Try to get some detectable PO4 in your system, I bet if you could consistently hold at around .02 or .03 your softies would show some growth. Might also get a little algae but that’s what Tangs and cuc are for. Softies will grow in a lot of different lighting conditions but they do need some nutrients to work with. Hope this helps.

 

[Joey.S]

It’s interesting that you have no PO4 and no growth of softies with 7 fish, including tangs, providing nutrients. Sounds like your filtration is effective. I think you could stand to dirty up your water a little bit and see what happens. Try to get some detectable PO4 in your system, I bet if you could consistently hold at around .02 or .03 your softies would show some growth. Might also get a little algae but that’s what Tangs and cuc are for. Softies will grow in a lot of different lighting conditions but they do need some nutrients to work with. Hope this helps.

Okay I just tested PO4 and the result was around 0.1, I assume this was from feeding roids. It shouldn’t really be anything over that correct?

 

[TheWB]

Okay I just tested PO4 and the result was around 0.1, I assume this was from feeding roids. It shouldn’t really be anything over that correct?

0.1 or 0.01? If it’s 0.1 it’s high but not anything to stress out about, mine hits that number sometimes although I don’t try and allow it to happen. If it’s 0.01 then at least it’s detectable and you should try and get it to stay consistent at about 0.03 and see if you start yo get some growth.

 

[Joey.S]

0.1 or 0.01? If it’s 0.1 it’s high but not anything to stress out about, mine hits that number sometimes although I don’t try and allow it to happen. If it’s 0.01 then at least it’s detectable and you should try and get it to stay consistent at about 0.03 and see if you start yo get some growth.

Yes 0.1, I’ll try and keep it within 0.03, thank you a lot for the help

 

[Joey.S]

0.1 or 0.01? If it’s 0.1 it’s high but not anything to stress out about, mine hits that number sometimes although I don’t try and allow it to happen. If it’s 0.01 then at least it’s detectable and you should try and get it to stay consistent at about 0.03 and see if you start yo get some growth.

Oh also if I raise alk to around 12 would that encourage growth? Or should I try with the phos first and see what happens?

 

[TheWB]

I wouldn’t do anything with Alk or Cal. Just leave it alone and watch your N and P. N around 10, P around 0.03 and see how it goes. Keep things stable and don’t change anything too quickly.

 

[Joey.S]

I wouldn’t do anything with Alk or Cal. Just leave it alone and watch your N and P. N around 10, P around 0.03 and see how it goes. Keep things stable and don’t change anything too quickly.

Could the undetectable phosphates be the result of the toadstools constantly shedding also? Or is that a lighting issue.

 

[TheWB]

I don’t know enough about Toadstools to understand why it would be shedding, due to the lighting or any other factors.

 

[Peacocksm]

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

What is your alkalinity at?

 

[Peacocksm]

What is your alkalinity at?

Sorry what is your ph

 

[Peacocksm]

Sorry what is your ph

Sounds like you are running low on ph. Your alk should be around 12. Ph should around 8

 

[Joey.S]

Sounds like you are running low on ph. Your alk should be around 12. Ph should around 8

Yeah I was curious if I should raise my alk more into the higher range. Last checked my PH was 7.9

 

[paintman]

Sounds like you are running low on ph. Your alk should be around 12. Ph should around 8

12?????? really?????????

 

[ClearRain]

I don't see the reasoning for dosing for calcium and alk, you don't have any stoneys... Honestly I've seen softies boom in tanks that are ignored, almost neglected... Make sure lighting isn't too strong, get your ph to around 8.3, and keep those nutrients in the system.
Dosing with Iodide couldn't hurt either. It's an essential element for softies.

 

[Peacocksm]

7.9 is still really good. Maybe think about adding Kalkwasser reactor

 

[Joey.S]

I don't see the reasoning for dosing for calcium and alk, you don't have any stoneys... Honestly I've seen softies boom in tanks that are ignored, almost neglected... Make sure lighting isn't too strong, get your ph to around 8.3, and keep those nutrients in the system.
Dosing with Iodide couldn't hurt either. It's an essential element for softies.

So should I continue water changes or leave everything alone? I will consider iodide though.

 

[danieyella]

I like the seachem iodide personally, I do 12 drops daily for my 90 display and will likely need to increase it again. I did start significantly lower and have been increasing as icp tests come back to make sure I keep it safe but my softies suck it up.

I do not do water changes, I do run a skimmer and change out filter pads a few times a week. I increased fish population to increase nutrients.