Coral growth: all kinds

AdeptMrSniffles

I have a Blue Thumb
So, I've seen/heard everyone saying "Man, these mushrooms are spreading like CRAZY!" or splitting, etc. I'm just wondering why in the hell my mushrooms don't explode! in numbers? My mushrooms just get BIG. Also, my Duncan has been squeezing out it's 8 baby heads for like.... 2 months! Some comment on theirs that it takes a couple of WEEKS! I know every tank is different. A 3 head piece of Torch that I bought about 4 months ago isn't even close to having tentacles, they're about 2cm. My frogspawn isn't fully extending anymore, altough I think 1 head is splitting into 2. Is my lighting (100 Watts T5) insufficient for my 29G? Enough to make things not multiply as fast? I tested my params and everything checked out on spot. Besides my nitrates at 1, I think because of my over feeding from the new fish, just wanna make sure it's settled in. I have NO hair algae but I think the "RO" water I'm getting from my LFS isn't as clean as it should be, I'm seeing a diatom outbreak.

Does anyone else suffer from this? I'm not annoyed that things don't explode. I'm just wondering if there is something not right in my tank that I need to address.

Sorry for a long post. Just had to get things offa my mind that concerned my tank. Hope everyone has had a GREAT Sunday. I know I have!
 
I actually have the same thing happen in my tank.. ive had a mushroom that i bought about a year ago and it was like 1.5-2 inches in diameter and now its like 5-6 inches in diameter and never split. The only thing that HAS split is one of my frogspawns which is just now splitting into 2 heads. Biff said that you can MAKE your mushroom split by cutting it in half with a razor blade, making sure each half gets a piece of the mouth... i didnt wanna torture my mushroom so i let it be, but i also would like to know why things dont split.
 
For comparison I have (6) 24w T5 HO bulbs on my 30H (24L x 12W x 24H) 144w

My green fuzzy mushrooms split every 6-8 weeks. My Superman mushrooms have recently taken off in that tank, so I'm adding lots of them to the frag tank. My zoas grow in a carpet over everything. Trumpet corals are splitting new heads every week. Purple Death are deep purple and putting out new polyps every 3-4 weeks. The lime green palys are growing across the sand bed like a carpet. I got zoas, yellow polyps, mushrooms and button polyps growing on the glass everywhere.

My corals grow like weeds. All I do is change between 5g - 7g on Sunday and feed the fish once a day.
 
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Ya, I've read up on "force splitting" but have never wanted to accidentally kill my beautiful fuzzy shroom so I let it be. I just looked at my frogspawn with my LED flashlight and 1 head is actually splitting into 3!

Also, my zoas don't "spread like crazy" and I've had a nuclear paly for 2 months and no sign of reproduction. Is there ANYTHING?!?! I can do?
 
For comparison I have (6) 24w T5 HO bulbs on my 30H (24L x 12W x 24H) 144w

My green fuzzy mushrooms split every 6-8 weeks. My Superman mushrooms have recently taken off in that tank, so I'm adding lots of them to the frag tank. My zoas grow in a carpet over everything. Trumpet corals are splitting new heads every week. Purple Death are deep purple and putting out new polyps every 3-4 weeks. The lime green palys are growing across the sand bed like a carpet. I got zoas, yellow polyps, mushrooms and button polyps growing on the glass everywhere.

My corals grow like weeds. All I do is change between 5g - 7g on Sunday and feed the fish once a day.


That's a big change! I'll try that week. I use a 6 gallon water container for my salter water so I'll just completely empty it next water change. But that's like.... $10. Oh well, I'll give it a shot.
 
I think the spectrum of your bulbs is more important than wattage... When I upgraded my 29 gal to 14K bulbs, all my corals took off. Also remember that all photosynthetic thingies need a period of total dark each day, so I found I get better growth by turning off my lunar lights when I go to bed. I have no data to back that up, just observation :)
 
I think the spectrum of your bulbs is more important than wattage... When I upgraded my 29 gal to 14K bulbs, all my corals took off. Also remember that all photosynthetic thingies need a period of total dark each day, so I found I get better growth by turning off my lunar lights when I go to bed. I have no data to back that up, just observation :)

I've been meaning to change out my bulbs, still have the stock ones from Current. I'm just not completely sure what combo I should get. Does 2 14K and 2 Pure Actinic sound good??

I have the T5 Sundial with the built in timers and lunar lights. I don't think there's a way to even shut off the lunar lights. They came with blue shades which makes it dark so I'll give that a try.
 
If it was me,I'd go with all 14Ks Evan.
What I've started doing on my lights,is having the actinics turn off when the HQI 14Ks come on.
And as for the coral growth,I think its just different from tank to tank.My mshrooms grow,but aint split yet.But thats cool,I'll just add more shrooms back in the shady parts as I can get into the store.
 
I've always been pretty lucky with my tank chemistry. I just change 5g or so on Sunday and thats it. I did get all upset about the low pH and alkalinity about a year ago. Fought it with buffers and other off the shelf crap. I tried that for months and months. I finally gave up. Trying to manually dose a 30g tank every 2 or 3 days to keep the parameters in spec - was more brain damage than I needed. :frustrat: Dosing it once a week was pointless because the water would become so out of whack again after 3 days that waiting until once a week was a complete shock to all the corals. Remember, small tanks - bad things happen quick - so the amount I needed for a week dose was so much that it drove the other parameters sky high to get the pH at 8.3-8.4 and the corals were FREAKED OUT for a few days afterwards. So I started this crazy dosing ritual of a tiny bit every other day. It worked, but it was such a HUGE pain in the ass. So I quit.

I clean my skimmer intake tube with a shot of RO water every out of the turkey baster every day and I change 5g or 6g on Sunday and dump the skimmer cup. They're practically growing outta the tank. Actually, the yellow polyps are growing all the way up to the top of the water at the top of the tank. They're 1/2 out of the water if I don't top off for a couple days. :mrgreen:

I did change my lights about 3 or 4 months ago. INSTANT change in the corals.
I had (3) 10K bulbs and (3) actinics.
I switched to (1) 10k, (2) 12k, (2) actinic, (1) 460nm.
Those are 24w T5 bulbs.

Within 2 weeks all my corals started showing deeper and more vibrant colors. I thought growth would slow down. It didn't. It was just the slightest shade of darker blue than what I had before. My eyes could barely detect it. But the corals sure responded well.
 
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