Question for Kevin Po... Growth

[ReeferPatt]

Hi Kevin,
I've read on some of your post that you get as much as 1-11/2" of growth a month. What I'm wondering is what your doing to get that kinda growth. Is it due to the size of your tanks, maturity, what?

I due water changes of at least 10% a week, I use aggressive skimming, my light is 400w 10k xm in a lumenarcIII. I use Red Sea coral pro salt, P04 reactor with rowaphos and carbon. 9w uv sterilizer. My tank is only 70gal. with a 30gal. sump.,20gal. refugium with cheato/caulerpra and a dsb. My perimeters are as follows:

n03=0
p04=0
ca=400-420
alk=8.3-8.5
SG=1.025-26

All measured with Salifert. Most all of my acros/sps are frags. Is that it maybe? Oh and I have fish, scopus tank, 1 anthias, midas blenny, 2 bar gobies, engineer gobe, royal gramma.

Am I missing something here or just need patience.

I use a diy 2 part additive for Ca and Alk......

Thanks for any input,

Robert

 

[ReeferPatt]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that I have good colors too.
Blues, purple, greens, oranges and yellows.

 

[kevinpo]

Hi Robert,
Your parameters look great. It is possible to have too clean of a tank even with Acropora. I don't run phosphate removers unless I see algae types associated with phosphate buildup. I have seen too much phosphate remover cause Acropora corals to slowly lose tissue.

Also Acropora have growth rates that go from a couple of inches per year to 1.5" a month. Other SPS corals vary widely in growth rates too.

Many SPS corals especially frags will take a few months (on average) to settle into their new environment. Things like light intensity, flow, and water paramenters can take time for them to get used to. Unless you are mainly interested in growth for sale be glad they don't grow too quickly it can become quite the chore to trim each month. Often a coral will just sit there for what seems like forever then suddenly it takes off. What happens often is that we think it needs to be moved becuase its not happy in its current location (I'm guilty of it). It then starts adjusting all over again
I try to resist for six months before moving it

Regards,
Kevin

 

[ReeferPatt]

Thanks Kevin,

I do have growth and good color, maybe just need to be little more patient. I do have digi's and mille's that are growing good. They all show growth could be that I'm constantly looking at them and don't really notice just how much they're growing. I think maybe I'll take your advise on the rowaphos p04 remover and take it out and just run carbon

 

[JaxReef]

Kevin, I am using Rowaphos in a phosban reactor. My tank is 210gallons and 55gallons for a sump. I replace the rowa every 2-3 months and have a large fish load. The tank is sps dominate. When you say too much phosphate remover will cause acros to loose tissue, how much is too much?
Thanks

Steve

 

[DonW]

I have a system of 3 days on ten days off. It took awile to come up with but it works. Keeps P .03 any more than three days on drops P down to 0 which is to low.

Don

 

[JaxReef]

wont shutting off the reactor create stagnant water in the reactor?

btw sweet sps food you have there, I am going to try it

 

[DonW]

wont shutting off the reactor create stagnant water in the reactor?

btw sweet sps food you have there, I am going to try it

Yup, You have to rinse it off in rodi water before storing it.

Don

 

[JaxReef]

thats just too much work to break down a reactor every 7-10 days. How about using less Rowa?

 

[kevinpo]

Hello,
I don't have experience with a reactor but I use just enough phosphate media/remover to keep the hair algae at bay. A slight amount on a powerhead or the back glass doesn't alarm me It is almost impossible to measure phosphate in the tank water if you have algae or a large stony coral mass. By the time you can measure it usually you are in real trouble. I just go by the appearance of hair algae. If I start to see some I dose until it dies off. Usually for a few weeks nothing happens after you start dosing then in a couple of days the algae swells up and turns brown. Then the next day it falls apart. I do a 20% water change right after that. Normally I dose every 6 months or so for the last 3-4 years.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[DonW]

thats just too much work to break down a reactor every 7-10 days. How about using less Rowa?

I agree, I dont use a reactor. The bag rowa comes with works just fine for me and its one less reactor and pump to have to take care of.

Don

 

[64Ivy]

thats just too much work to break down a reactor every 7-10 days. How about using less Rowa?

I've just begun to run my reactor with 25% of the recommended media dosage. It's too early to report the effects (if any) just yet but should it remove the small amount of hair algae and cyano I have without any damage to the corals, I might let it run constantly. Btw, I also do 10% water changes every week.

 

[JaxReef]

I had a one large area of hair algae and after one day using the rowa and a reactor it was gone. After a few weeks all the hair algae in the tank was gone. I have also increased my fish load and feed more with out any difference. I only use the 30 dollar jar of Rowa since it is so expensive and I do not fill the reactor all the way. I do a 20-30 gallon water change a week to two weeks also.

 

[cwegescheide]

Another thing to think about with frags is as the coral gets larger it seems to grow faster if that makes any sense. Atleast that is my experience in the corals I have grown from frags. It may be due to the fact they have been in the tank for a long time and acclimated to the conditions as well.

 

[slojmn]

Along the lines of what cwegescheide said, growth gets exponential as corals grow larger. If I have a stag frag with two branches it will grow a third branch plus some nubs will sprout off the two branches. So after some time I now have five branches, then they all sprout a nub, after some time I now have ten branches and so on. Same with encrusting montis, little frags only encrust in the circumference of the frag, as the coral grows the circumference increases tremendously thus more growth in the same amount of time.

I have to agree with Kevin, more growth=more work and usually less space. If you are like me you probably have more corals than space allows for grow out in the tank. I am so in trouble...I have to get rid of some corals because I can already see issues when things grow out even more in the next year. I try to be so careful but there are so many awesome corals that I find myself overstocked . BTW, I get slow growth and I am happy about that.

 

[SueT]

Hi slojmn, I'm so happy you made it over to our lil' sps forum. I'm very happy to be a part of it. I think you'll be happy.

My growth actually seems to grow like your describing. A 2 branch frag ends up with growing multiple branches off the tip and then begins to grow in all directions. I still have room but things are growing quite fast now.

 

[slojmn]

Thanks Sue

 

[kevinpo]

I try to be so careful but there are so many awesome corals that I find myself overstocked

Isn’t that the truth! :lol: It's the kind of self control that can only be controlled by getting another or larger tank
Seriously even if you have a very large tank and only a few corals they will still outgrow your tank but at least then you have some nice looking mature colonies.

Regards,
Kevin