slow growth

[saltfishlover]

well i just looked a few pics from years ago. i realized that my coral growth is not that fast. I have talked to othersand we both have pulsing xenia. his grows about twice the rate of mine. I checked trates, trites, amonia and all low-0. calcium is at 450 and alk is 12. any ideas? I have a 72 gal bowfront now with a sump. it runs a prisim skimmer with 2x250 MH bulbs and 4x 65W actinic PC. runs between 6-8 hours depnding on alge growth. i do 5-10 percent wwater change weekly. should i add supplemnts.. thats the one thing i try to avoid.

 

[DaBrowns]

what other corals do you have? I also have pulsing xenia...it was our 1st coral...and it grows almost like a weed. We have 2 150W HQI halides which the xenia is currently directly under b/c we are trying to grow it out and use it as a living background on the tank. we dose only calcium and iodine and do water changes every 2-3 weeks, have a 35g sump and 150g display.

Do you both have the same species? If they're big enough you should trade a small piece w/ each other and monitor the growth...just an idea.

Here is a picture of it the day we added it to the tank:
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/photos_members/showphoto.php?photo=5811&ppuser=14141

And here it is a few days ago-it's the pink clump at the top of the rock
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/photos_members/showphoto.php?photo=6109&ppuser=14141

After some quick math...it's been in the tank for 66 days between the pictures.

 

[saltfishlover]

i have a bunch others. frogspawn hammer, torches, candycane, shrooms and some zoos. its a pretty full tank with corals, but only have 3 fish. 2 clowns and a damsel so livestock not so much. maybe im missing the diffenence between a normal MH light and a HQI.

 

[steven11]

I think the difference is the iodine. I have xenia and when i stopped dosing iodine, the xenia stopped growing. All of your softies and LPS will love the extra iodine.

 

[jezzeaepi]

How fast is it growing? I got one branch of it about 6 months ago. Now I have 25+ branches. I dont know if thats fast or slow, but I dont dose iodine and run 195W t5' over my 40G.

Peace

 

[steven11]

I have pom pom and blue tip that i frag about every three months. I go from one or two stalks to about 20+ big stalks of each in three months. I could get double that of little stalks if i gave it more rubble to "jump" to. Maybe some of the people that i have traded xenia to will jump in with their experiences with it in their tanks. I am sure that the strain of xenia makes a difference in how fast it will grow.

 

[saltfishlover]

in three months i have ot gained any new branches. it was growing well about a year ago when i got it, but it stopped about 6 months ago. not getting any taller or thicker. how much iodine do you dose?

 

[billaweed]

For me it seems as though my xenias are growing at a good rate but my other corals are not

 

[DaBrowns]

we have a LPS dominated tank with only 1 SPS (just got yesterday) so far. I was dosing 4 capfuls of Kent Marine Iodine (red bottle) about every 8-9 days. I may lay off for awhile though as we just added a burgandy starfish as well and I'm not SURE about the effect (if any) it will havae on him and I want to make sure he makes it

 

[DaBrowns]

almost forgot to ask...how long has it been since you cleaned your light covers...if used over the halides?? Reason I ask is I just did it yesterday...after 4 months. Just a thought

 

[spongebob lover]

if you're gonna dose iodine ... you should first check where you are at dood ..... never dose without knowing what you got.
ph should be around 8.4 where's yours at?
what kind of test kits are you checking with?? just a few things to think about