my little slice of heaven :) RC edition

[Mattmoo]

i have an orca tl450 that ive had a fair few years. has a 150w MH with a reeflux bulb. v2 nano skimmer, vortech mp10 and lots of corals :P its a mixed reef - lps sps soft and azoo. stock wise there is a orange spot goby and pistol shrimp, jester goby, a strawberry gramma, 2 cleaners, 1 peppermint and 3 sexy shrimp. i one day plan to get custom built sumped nano cube, hence buying decent equipment for a 'beginners' tank :P so that it can be used in the upgrade. im pretty happy with my tank, apart from my sps wont grow and its bugging me :( i havnt got a recent pic of it and ill try and get a good one :) any questions?

[Buster]

Welcome Mattmoo, I used to have an orca with seahorses, nice little tanks. Be quick with those pics.

[Timo]

i have an orca tl450 that ive had a fair few years. has a 150w MH with a reeflux bulb. v2 nano skimmer, vortech mp10 and lots of corals :P its a mixed reef - lps sps soft and azoo. stock wise there is a orange spot goby and pistol shrimp, jester goby, a strawberry gramma, 2 cleaners, 1 peppermint and 3 sexy shrimp. i one day plan to get custom built sumped nano cube, hence buying decent equipment for a 'beginners' tank :P so that it can be used in the upgrade. im pretty happy with my tank, apart from my sps wont grow and its bugging me :( i havnt got a recent pic of it and ill try and get a good one :) any questions?

You need to take a PO4 reading of your water, phosphate really limits your SPS growth.

Also try adding a sup like KZ coral snow or purple-up once every few days for a few weeks, take a photo before and after to check for any growth.

[Mattmoo]

id take a photo but theres a jug full of RO packed with mag hanging on the side, slowly raising it :P plus more editions will be there soon. some purple zoas with yellow fringes, some red PE zoas and the most colourful green and red ones i have ever seen :D my phosphate is extremely low, and always has been, but there is tank tests phosphate remover in there. only one part of the sps has grown, another arm on my green milli grew in the space of about 1 week, about an inch + long, aswell as growing across the frag disc. my orange milli has grown a tiny bit over the base, and my blue tipped acro hasnt grown at all. ive had these frags since mid january..... is it possible there getting too much light? i get my water from my lfs and its low in params so im gonna start mixing my own. bought KZ salt and i didnt like it, so its for sale for £50 for a 20kg box. used only a tiny bit, let me know if any of you are interested :) oh and i feed my sps phyto and have some KZ blue bottles

[Timo]

Post a pic up if you can. I have seen SPS growing right under a 150w so I don't think too much light is a prob with a 150w light unit even on a small tank, normally more light the better you could change your bulb to a 20k or 22k to lower the PAR a little.

I have used live Rotifer's in the past and they do increase growth a lot but are a bit of a pain to keep culturing. Try the KZ coral snow alk fix I mentioned in my last post, I know it works because I use it and it spurs growth in as little as a few weeks.

[Mattmoo]

pic on the left is jan/feb one on the right is today. big change in colours i know, cos they originally came from a tank with a 250w halide

[Timo]

pic on the left is jan/feb one on the right is today. big change in colours i know, cos they originally came from a tank with a 250w halide

The SPS on the left I have the same coral and its hardly grown much in over a year. Some SPS grow really fast and some really slow it can be totally luck of the draw especially when buying wild cultured corals. Try some monti frags they tend to grow faster than bush style acros. If you go to the Reefworks site there is a Green monti digitata and it grows really fast in a cative environment in fact I have a few digitata's and they are all fast growers. I have some really fast growing acros on my frag rack its a shame your a bit too far to pop over but if your ever over this way on business or something send me PM.

[Mattmoo]

they must be fast growing ones as i get them off my boss and he has to frag his acros every couple of weeks cos they grow that fast! ive had montis before and theyve turned brown :O sps just dont like me :(