Oceanic 40gallon Sps tank.

[MichaelB]

No my son has been feeding the tanks while I was away. Out if all my tanks i watch this one the closest. The growth I couldn't equate to being a mental thing of not seeing the tank. New frags that were added a week before I left not even close to doing anything visual yet. Have started to encrust and even send up the beginnings of new branches.

The some of the older acroporas has new branches with multiple arms.

Frags that were on my frag racks are encroaching on each other and some starting to attempt to encrust up the glass.

As far as not doing anything I've been hands out of this tank for maybe 6 months only water changes. And fragging a branch here or there when things threaten to fight to the death.

@Alexander1312

Almost wondering if weekly water changes might be stressful on the acros. It's the only major difference I can see presently.

 

[Alexander1312]

No my son has been feeding the tanks while I was away. Out if all my tanks i watch this one the closest. The growth I couldn't equate to being a mental thing of not seeing the tank. New frags that were added a week before I left not even close to doing anything visual yet. Have started to encrust and even send up the beginnings of new branches.

The some of the older acroporas has new branches with multiple arms.

Frags that were on my frag racks are encroaching on each other and some starting to attempt to encrust up the glass.

As far as not doing anything I've been hands out of this tank for maybe 6 months only water changes. And fragging a branch here or there when things threaten to fight to the death.

@Alexander1312

Almost wondering if weekly water changes might be stressful on the acros. It's the only major difference I can see presently.

Changing 25% of the water weekly long term is indeed not advisable for SPS, and possibly other corals. It will lead to significantly elevated iron and manganese (anti caking agents in the salt) as it did for me when I thought this was a good idea to manage nutrients over a period of several months.

I have not done a water change for almost 5 weeks to bring down iron and managese and things really look better, PH increased, but NO3 creeeped up from 13 to 18 and PO4 only slightly went up and currently sitting around 0.13 or lower.

I will most likely restart water change this weekend to 5% as recommend by some SPS gurus I know, and try to not go above 10%. Anything higher than that might be ok for fish and easy corals but not SPS.

So going back to your assumption, yes, you might be on to something but even moonshiners to not advocate against water change, so I would not entirely stop it.

 

[MichaelB]

Changing 25% of the water weekly long term is indeed not advisable for SPS, and possibly other corals. It will lead to significantly elevated iron and manganese (anti caking agents in the salt) as it did for me when I thought this was a good idea to manage nutrients over a period of several months.

I have not done a water change for almost 5 weeks to bring down iron and managese and things really look better, PH increased, but NO3 creeeped up from 13 to 18 and PO4 only slightly went up and currently sitting around 0.13 or lower.

I will most likely restart water change this weekend to 5% as recommend by some SPS gurus I know, and try to not go above 10%. Anything higher than that might be ok for fish and easy corals but not SPS.

So going back to your assumption, yes, you might be on to something but even moonshiners to not advocate against water change, so I would not entirely stop it.

Of course. It has me thinking though. Maybe worth a shot of trying 5 gallon changes in stead of 10 for a few weeks and note effects. I wouldn't ever see myself joining the no water change club.

 

[Royce023]

What a nice welcome back.

No other explanation other than the typical effect people see when they are coming back from vacation that the tank does better without than with our often daily interventions. Sometimes I wonder though if this perceived improvement comes from not seeing the tank for a while vs looking at it daily. In your case, the improvement seems to be massive, so maybe not a perception issue.

The only more tangible reason is the change in salt - reef crystal is not an SPS salt, the aquaforest salt is. Folks might argue they can grow SPS with any salts and neglect the 50 other things they do to get there. Salt matters for SPS.

Anything else you did not do while you were gone?

Interesting, I'm switching from Instant Ocean to Nyos Pure only because I don't want to clean my 100 gallon salt water container so often. I wonder if I will see a difference in growth.

 

[MichaelB]

Interesting, I'm switching from Instant Ocean to Nyos Pure only because I don't want to clean my 100 gallon salt water container so often. I wonder if I will see a difference in growth.

Same reason I switch aqua forest mixes much cleaner. I didn't have a issue with reef crystals other than gunk left behind after mixing it up.

 

[spuri87]

Any ideas as to causes or possibilities in regards to explosive growth on practically every stick in the entire tank even crazy slow growers. Like talking 3-5 months of growth in 3 weeks time?

Maybe your prayers during the pilgrimage were heard?

 

[MichaelB]

Maybe your prayers during the pilgrimage were heard?

Lol no prayers were prayed for the tanks lmao.