Go

[StirCrazy]

I think everyone is missing the point, it doesn't take a higher nutrient level in the water to grow softies, I have grown them at high rates of growth in very nutrient lacking water, it takes high light, good water quality, and food, just like any other coral.

Now there are two ways to get the food, 1 have a high level of nutrients in your water and fight with algae unless you can find the perfect level of nutrients that the softies can have just enuf but it isn't enuf for algae.

Or you can set up a nutrient free system with higher flow and aggressive skimming. Now this is the part where most people get confused, just having a skimmer doesn't cut this set up, you need to be able to severally over skim. the idea behind this one is that you feed your corals a lot and your skimmer can remove the un eaten food before it breaks down and turns into algae fuel. another part of this is water flow, you have to have enuf so that you have now dead spots in the tank, and that it will keep all the junk suspended so the skimmer can remove it, unfortunately this usually means having to have a bare bottom tank.

Almost all of us operate somewhere between these two ideals, therefor we have algae and other problems. I have been moving to-wards the latter set up for about two years now, increasing tank flow, removing the sand bed, increasing flow again, and finally building my new skimmer which should be able to handle a tank 10X bigger than whats it is going to be used on.

so in my mind anyone who says you need nutrient rich water for softies, or that they do better under lower lighting, either honestly doesn't know any better or doesn't want to spend the money to upgrade lighting/equipment

Steve