Does anyone have a tank wth mature acans or chalices?? I am intrigued about trying some said:
Acans tend to grow at different rates... but you can encourage growth by doing a few things. If you are starting with a frag, you have to decide if you want to provide it a base or grow its own. It will grow polyps faster if you provide the base for it to spread, either a flat LR or piece of smooth LR. Attach it with gel and place in low to medium light with low to medium flow. You also should spot feed it meaty foods such as mysis once or twice a week. Just take a baster and squirt the meat into the polyps, but don't go hog wild. A single mysis per head should do. You can also use things such as roti fest at night after lights out. If you want them to grow, you need to feed them, or have fish that poop all over them.
Maintain steady alkalinity in the 8-10 range, calcium in the 400 - 440 ppm range and magnesium in the 1350 - 1450 range.
Acans are an LPS, so they like nutrient rich water. If you are keeping SPS, you will want to rely on spot feeding so your nitrates don't creep up over 5ppm... but if you have a mixed tank and no SPS to worry about, nitrates in the 10-15ppm range will help them since there will plenty of food in the tank. PO4 should be kept in check, but you don't need to run GFO or anything. All of this will help them... but you will want to make sure you are not growing problem algae.
Acans will do fine in an SPS type tank, provided you shade them, but you asked about optimal growth..... so feeding, providing a base for them to spread and parms will matter. If you need them to grow their own base, ie skeleton, it will take longer for them to grow.
