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commodore
01/02/2011, 01:11 PM
I run a good skimmer, carbon/gfo reactors, weekly water changes, 2 part supplementation, etc. I keep mainly soft corals and a few LPS. My corals just seem to survive and not grow.

I was looking at someone else's tank yesterday and the soft corals were doing well. He didn't supplement. CA/alk/mag, rarely changed water and didn't skim, yet his corals were doing better than mine. He suggested that perhaps I was doing too much and should turn off my skimmer and only run it occasionally. He said that my water may be too stripped of nutrients,etc. to support good soft coral growth.

Does that make sense? I thought that as long as I had decent lighting and maintained good water quality,ph and proper levels of CA/alk/mag, softies should flourish and over-skimming, and use of carbon/gfo reactors would do more good than harm.

Advice? Thanks

capt85
01/02/2011, 01:21 PM
LPS and SPS will thrive under low nutrient systems. Softies need dirtier water to feed and get the right nutrition.

I would still expect them to grow just not as fast.

svejil
01/02/2011, 01:42 PM
Yes, water can be too sterile, however you did not post any numbers. What are you nitrates, and phophates?

SV

Sk8r
01/02/2011, 01:51 PM
I run a messy skimmer and have great lps growth, feeding large freezedried krill to very messy fish. A correspondent of mine over-skimmed and had nem problems, cut back, fed puree of krill, and has noticed great improvement. I'd say, imho, softies would be the same. Lps and softies act as filters, and seem to like high nutrient in the water.

commodore
01/02/2011, 07:44 PM
If the softies and LPS are photosynthetic, then why is "dirtier" water required for them to thrive? I certainly don't object to less maintenance, but don't want to have to then deal with nuisance algae,etc.

I run a good skimmer, carbon/gfo reactors, weekly water changes, 2 part supplementation, etc. I keep mainly soft corals and a few LPS. My corals just seem to survive and not grow.

I was looking at someone else's tank yesterday and the soft corals were doing well. He didn't supplement. CA/alk/mag, rarely changed water and didn't skim, yet his corals were doing better than mine. He suggested that perhaps I was doing too much and should turn off my skimmer and only run it occasionally. He said that my water may be too stripped of nutrients,etc. to support good soft coral growth.

Does that make sense? I thought that as long as I had decent lighting and maintained good water quality,ph and proper levels of CA/alk/mag, softies should flourish and over-skimming, and use of carbon/gfo reactors would do more good than harm.

Advice? Thanks

unionredskin22
01/02/2011, 08:10 PM
The symbiotic algae in the coral is photosynthetic, which generates some food source. The coral itself will still catch things out of the water to feed itself