Photo inhibition

I have had well documented struggles with my tank. I have changed about everything, added sump, reactor, skimmer, halide lighting etc. I have mostly acropora and monitopora coral. I have some soft corals (zoas and mushrooms) and some lps (candy cane and frogspawn).

I had some color issues about 6 weeks ago, but that is now improving (added more fish, dose amino acids and oyster eggs).

Long story short, I had minor success (candy canes doubled, montipora exploded) back in November of 2012 through January when growth stopped. That caused me to add a sump and change my lighting (had 120 watt LED unit running at 30%). I now have 25o watts of halide over my 20 gallon.

Everything in the tank is looking really healthy now, but nothing grows...nothing. Coralline stopped growing and disappeared. I've let everything sit ideal for 6 weeks since I started dosing the amino and besides my color improvement, there's been nothing in the way of growth (since January really). My SPS all encrust over the super glue and then stop growing completely.

My numbers are superb and have been stable for months. These are well documented in other threads.

I am trying to hone in on success and I think I am getting close with these minor tweaks.

I am now thinking maybe I have light inhibition from my halide.

Thoughts?

 

What is your lighting period? Maybe you are over doing it with light...

 

It's been on a 6 hour cycle for 6 weeks.

 

That is a lot of light but I do not think that is the issue, what temp is the tank running at?

You should see tabling with that much light.

Since you're already at 6 hours try raising the fixture.

When I think of photo-inhibition I think of corals that close up and show scant polyp extension as the photoperiod increase over the length of the day.

 

Temp tank is 78 right now. Ranges from about 77-80 during the light cycle. Fixture is 10" up right now.

I have great PE on all of my corals, especially my SPS. Softies never shrink up except for the mushrooms from time to time, but they are typically wide open.

I seriously cannot stress the "no growth" part. With my parameters, you would think I would have a hint of growth. None of my montis have a white rim, my mushrooms haven't put out a new head since may, my zoas don't budge from the frag disk that they were covering 10 months ago when I bought them. Just a little encrusting and then nothing. I have had these monti's for a year. 2 frags were the size of a quarter....they are still a quarter sized frag. You would expect that they would be massive colonies in 12 months time.

I have a Koralia 290, 425 and a return of 290 for flow.

I am sure you all are as frustrated with me as I am with my tank.

 

Here's some PE examples:

 

But consider you messed with the tank for a good period of that. SPS do not like to be moved or messed with even if it's to the benefit of the system over all.

You sound like you are doing everything right. Keep everything at status quo for a couple more months. Takes images for comparison. It will happen it's just painfully slow.

What types of monti are we talking here?

 

5 months growth:

 

That's true. Albeit slowly.

I haven't touched much of anything since April since I felt I had everything locked in. The only change made in the last 3 months was adding oyster feast and amino acids.

 

Ok, yeah I will give you that, it looks pretty slow.

At least the BN should have taken off by now, it does have nice color though.

What are your other lighting options? What brand of bulb? Can you turn one MH off?