Soft Coral Growth

[Joe M]

I added several soft coral frags from GARF back in mid September, (the 65 gallon tank is three months old). Aside from the Keyna tree and green star polyps which are growing/expanding, the mushrooms and zooanthids look healthy but don't appear to be growing or spreading. Twice a week I feed the tank with 4ml of Marine Snow and 4ml of zooplankton. As I mentioned in a previous post, I use an algae scrubber, a small skimmer and a refugium for filtration. In the fuge is some caulerpa which I have had to harvest. The scrubber has a nice mat of algae and is on a photoperiod opposite to the main tank (2130 hrs to 0900 hrs) Is it possible that all the algae is leaving no nutrients for the corals? Lights are 2 9w red, 2 28w blue actinic compacts and a 250 w MH. The lights cycle to simulate dawn and dusk and the photo period for the MH is 5 hours, the others 13 and 12 respectively.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks Joe

 

[Anonymous]

There are some theory about chemical from macroalgae that can slow down the growth of coral, and vice versa, but in most cases, the benefit of scrubber/refug. make it a better choice than a tank with only one species of coral.

There are many thing that you can try to see if any of them will make a difference, but my opinion is that as long as the corals are in good health, visible growth and reproduction are not the only thing that you need to obtain.

Try the followings:
1, increase the light cycle (from 5 hr. to say, 7 or more hours on the MH)
2, move the mushroom to a brighter/dimmer spot
3, stop the dosing of MarineSnow and zoo.

BTW, how is your water parameter? do you change water regularly?

 

[Joe M]

Currently my water parameters are Ca 400, Kh 9.3, Alk, 3.31 and PH 8.0. I change about 25% of the water per month. I have been using B-ionic to raise the CA, Kh and Alk and it has been a slow process.