Best conditions for fast coral growth?

[Anonymous]

My frag grow-out tank is up and running, and I would like some opinions on how to achieve the fastest coral growth...

Specs :

- 50 gallon breeder
- 6" DSB (Southdown), seeded with 25 lbs live sand (also Southdown) from my 75G reef (set up for well over a year)
- 25 lbs. live rock, smashed into 3" frag-attachment pieces, scattered over the live sand
- Red Sea Prizm skimmer
- three rotating powerheads with 150gph power level
- three Coralife 60/40 95watt VHO bulbs powered by an IceCap 660
- one 2.5" niger trigger

What can I do to get the corals to spread and grow the fastest? Is this an ideal setup for such a purpose?

Opinions would be very welcomed...

Thanks in advance.

Peace,

Chip

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: marillion ]</p>

 

[Mike and Donna]

You haven't mentioned what you are doing to achieve good alk and ca levels, which is the key to coral growth.

Lighting is dependent on what kinds of coral you are trying to propogate. But it sounds like all your coral is going to be towards the bottom of the tank, relatively far from the lights. You might want some bigger pieces of LR to get the light-loving corals higher.

 

[Anonymous]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mike and Donna:
<strong>You haven't mentioned what you are doing to achieve good alk and ca levels, which is the key to coral growth. </strong><hr></blockquote>

For LPS and SPS, yes. The tank will be mostly softies, but regardless, I dose with B-Ionic to maintain high alk and calc levels.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr><strong>
Lighting is dependent on what kinds of coral you are trying to propogate. But it sounds like all your coral is going to be towards the bottom of the tank, relatively far from the lights. You might want some bigger pieces of LR to get the light-loving corals higher.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Well, every coral in the tank will only be about 12" total from the light, and I don't use a glass canopy, so I'm not really worried about lighting. I'm more worried about how I can get them spreading fast.

Thanks for the input.

Peace,

Chip

 

[davelin315]

I would skip the niger trigger. Even though I've heard they are reef safe, triggers are generally sand "blowers" as they will puff at the sand to get at tasty morsels below, which might result in some of your frags getting buried. Also, triggers will generally move rocks around if they can lift them, and the rubble you're trying to attach your softies to is probably small enough for him to flip over all the time, and this wouldn't be good for growth.