Slow to no coral growth??
- Thread starter bkostuch
- Start date
Go easy on that stuff...it's pretty powerful when used correctly but ANY change can upset your corals.
Given some of your other woes/concerns... have you considered adding some macroalgae to your sump & lighting it ~16-20 hours a day overlapping your tank's "dark" time? It can help stabilize ph swings and help soak excessive ammonia/nitrate & phosphate. I say help because in order to completely handle a serious nutrient problem you'd need to have almost a second similarly sized tank full of it.
Biggest practical benefits when keeping normal quantities of the stuff (i.e a sump chamber reasonably full) would be fostering copepod populations & having a living test kit of sorts for some of the parameters you're concerned with. Anytime my macroalgae starts surging in growth I know I'm either feeding too much or need to step up the water changes. Likewise if it starts to grow very slowly or fragment I know I'm not feeding enough or back off on changes for a bit.
Don't worry about coral growth for the first 9 months to a year. Just focus on maintaining stability and getting a "feel" for what your system does... do so and eventually things will take off. Having livestock & corals "not die" is about the best you can hope for in the early stages of your tank's existence, and 4-6 months in is definitely so.
FWIW, my own tank was a nearly barren wasteland for the first 7-9 months. Had hermits/shrimp & a couple fish do fine, but corals would stay at purchase size consistently. But once coraline started showing up on rocks/glass it changed completely. I now regard eagle-eye zoas as a borderline pest.
Given some of your other woes/concerns... have you considered adding some macroalgae to your sump & lighting it ~16-20 hours a day overlapping your tank's "dark" time? It can help stabilize ph swings and help soak excessive ammonia/nitrate & phosphate. I say help because in order to completely handle a serious nutrient problem you'd need to have almost a second similarly sized tank full of it.
Biggest practical benefits when keeping normal quantities of the stuff (i.e a sump chamber reasonably full) would be fostering copepod populations & having a living test kit of sorts for some of the parameters you're concerned with. Anytime my macroalgae starts surging in growth I know I'm either feeding too much or need to step up the water changes. Likewise if it starts to grow very slowly or fragment I know I'm not feeding enough or back off on changes for a bit.
Don't worry about coral growth for the first 9 months to a year. Just focus on maintaining stability and getting a "feel" for what your system does... do so and eventually things will take off. Having livestock & corals "not die" is about the best you can hope for in the early stages of your tank's existence, and 4-6 months in is definitely so.
FWIW, my own tank was a nearly barren wasteland for the first 7-9 months. Had hermits/shrimp & a couple fish do fine, but corals would stay at purchase size consistently. But once coraline started showing up on rocks/glass it changed completely. I now regard eagle-eye zoas as a borderline pest.
Cheatomorpha's a commonly available (some members have been giving it away for free lately) and low-risk option - make sure to have a fine mesh covering your return so that when bits of it break off they don't foul your pump or end up floating around in your display. Grows fast when lit with warm white light (LED, CFL, incandescent daylight bulbs... any one's a decent choice).
Ulva, Padina and red-or-green Gracilaria are also a good options - when grown in a sump you can turn around and feed some of it to herbivorous fish/critters in your display.
Caulerpa (several species) is also very effective but carries a potential risk of going sexual under insufficient light or nutrients. when this happens you could be looking at cloudy water for a few days up to a tank crash if a lot of it dies off. Generally keeping it lit 18-20 hours will address one cause and routine pruning (which you'd be doing with any non-display grade macroalgae anyways) will take care of the other.
Ulva, Padina and red-or-green Gracilaria are also a good options - when grown in a sump you can turn around and feed some of it to herbivorous fish/critters in your display.
Caulerpa (several species) is also very effective but carries a potential risk of going sexual under insufficient light or nutrients. when this happens you could be looking at cloudy water for a few days up to a tank crash if a lot of it dies off. Generally keeping it lit 18-20 hours will address one cause and routine pruning (which you'd be doing with any non-display grade macroalgae anyways) will take care of the other.
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definitely dont want it to tumble but most reactors come with foam pads which is how i keep the phosguard in my reactor from tumbling and it works pretty well.
Well i have been running the Phosguard and can definitely tell a change for the better. Dropped my PO4 down to .25 as of today, still pushing it towards 0.0 but that will take a couple more days. GFO reactor on order and should be here next week.
The good thing is that I am starting see better coloration out of my Acros (the two I have ) And a couple of my Paly's are wide open like I haven't seen before. So far I only regret not running a reactor from the start
The good thing is that I am starting see better coloration out of my Acros (the two I have
) And a couple of my Paly's are wide open like I haven't seen before. So far I only regret not running a reactor from the start - Messages
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Nice...
The only thing I might add (to some pretty decent advice) is:
1 - I'm a big fan of being as natural as can be. A good amount of chaeto in a refugium or lit part of a sump can be really beneficial in many ways, and water changes are one of the best things that you can do for a tank.
2 - Changing things slowly and gradually. If you've ever hung out at a pool on a hot day, you've probably jumped into the pool and the cold went through your body like a shock wave for a second, and then you shook it off and were fine.
Fish and corals do the same thing, but they don't shake it off very well. Big and fast changes often stress them, resulting in compromised immune systems for a time, etc... So the more gradual you can make any changes, it's usually the better.
There are, of course, exceptions to this.
It sounds like you're getting a good handle on this. I'm looking forward to seeing how your aquarium progresses.
The only thing I might add (to some pretty decent advice) is:
1 - I'm a big fan of being as natural as can be. A good amount of chaeto in a refugium or lit part of a sump can be really beneficial in many ways, and water changes are one of the best things that you can do for a tank.
2 - Changing things slowly and gradually. If you've ever hung out at a pool on a hot day, you've probably jumped into the pool and the cold went through your body like a shock wave for a second, and then you shook it off and were fine.
Fish and corals do the same thing, but they don't shake it off very well. Big and fast changes often stress them, resulting in compromised immune systems for a time, etc... So the more gradual you can make any changes, it's usually the better.
There are, of course, exceptions to this.
It sounds like you're getting a good handle on this. I'm looking forward to seeing how your aquarium progresses.
