sps growth or lack there of

[nobody]

i have a question. I have a mix of mostly lps and sps. all my lps pagoda,zoas,etc.. are growing very nicely but the sps is not at all i think. I do not have the white tips either to signify growth. I have a greens birds nest and a acro. My calc is always 420-450 and my alk is always 9-11. The only thing i can think of is my nitrates which are around 25-30. My ph is low also but i dont know if that would effect sps growth. My derasa clam is also growing great. so its only the sps. ?????? all the polyps come out on the birds nest and the acro but no growth

[crvz]

low pH will make it harder for stony corals to calcify, and high nitrates will inhibit growth as well.

[Wiskey]

And Phosphate is worse of all for them.

But if I remember right you just got these and you've been messing with the tank a whole bunch lately,... they really need time and need to be left alone so they can acclimate and grow

Whiskey

[nobody]

i got them about 2 1/2-3 months ago. dont have any phos. thank god. just nitrates. the fuge and new skimmer should take carwe of that.

[UseSkaForEvil]

yea i noticed my stony corals aren't groing as well as they used to either, and then i noticed my nitrates were at 150ppm. so thats probably the problem

[DarthOcellaris]

Originally Posted by UseSkaForEvil

yea i noticed my stony corals aren't groing as well as they used to either, and then i noticed my nitrates were at 150ppm. so thats probably the problem

150!? ouch.

[crvz]

Originally Posted by ionracing

i got them about 2 1/2-3 months ago. dont have any phos. thank god. just nitrates. the fuge and new skimmer should take carwe of that.

How do you know you don't have any phosphates?

[YLChik]

where their is algae there is phospate

[crvz]

Originally Posted by YLChik

where their is algae there is phospate

yup. test kits are useless.

[hng]

Good point Amy. I think you have a phosphate issue, that's the problem (in addition to the high nitrates).

[ChilisREasy]

Originally Posted by crvz

yup. test kits are useless.

ive seen people with alge grow SPS..most if not everyone has some sort of alge

[hng]

Originally Posted by ChilisREasy

ive seen people with alge grow SPS..most if not everyone has some sort of alge

True, but it's a relative thing. The smaller the system, the greater the impact of a small excess of phosphate or nitrate.

[tdwyatt]

Lots of factors here working against coral growth, but the basic issue is going to be the presence of nitarte AND phsphate coupled with high pCO2 (which drives down tank pH, eventually depletes alkalinity, makes biological precipitation of CaCO3 difficult and more energy costly, and feeds algae with inorganic carbon) and Gelbstoff from your algae to act as inhibitors of stony coral calcification and skeletalization. Long-term, tanks with algae inhibit coral growth due to the release and accumulation of gelbstoff: the longer that algae are present, the more the inhibitors accumulate, esepecially in systems without carbon and good water change schedules. Agressive skimming helps reduce these presence of the algal inhibitors, but is usually not enough by itself. You cannot say that as a rule-of-thumb that systems with algal growth will be able to support good stony growth, in fact it is usually a R-O-T that these tanks do NOT support calcification nor skeletalization necessary for good skeletal growth in these corals (see any number of papers in Coral Reefs on this subject, or simply look to the Florida Bay for a good example in the wild of such inhibition).

JM2CW.

[nobody]

i dont really have any algae now. I cleaned the little bit i had about a week ago and rearrange my flow which has seemed to help. we will see though

[Jasontkd]

do you run carbon at all? I know sometimes in mixed reefs there can be some warfare between softies, lps, and sps. this could be contributing, but most likely it is just that your water chemistry is a little off.