Dominant SPS Mixed reef guys?? Imput please

Michael43 · May 14, 2016

Who does it? It seems heavy SPS tanks somewhat stay SPS tanks. I'm looking to stay as a mixed reef with a decent amount of LPS but mostly SPS. I would like to know the advantages/disadvantages of keeping everyone happy. I see in the by sell section people sell off corals because they are going "dominant SPS" To me if you have the room why not keep them? Sorry of this is a repeat or completely noob question.

BBASH · May 14, 2016

i've managed to do it in my 250
t5/led lighting
good skimmer
calcium reactor
vinegar/h202 dosing
turf scrubber
i keeep my cal/alk and mag stable and try to maintain nitrates around 5 and phosphate a little high around .25 now.
a little ha but managable.I feed 3-4 cubes per day.I know most strive for lower phosphate but i don't see much difference with lower levels and it gets tedious and expensive.

Michael43 · May 15, 2016

Anyone else have any input? Nice tank bbash

Drmiami · May 15, 2016

I think it is a personal preference mostly. I feel If you can keep SPS then you can keep LPS without problems.

This is an opinion only and based on my experience:

On my first run, I had it mixed and ran this way for 12 years. The disadvantage was that some of my LPS grew quite large and needed more clearance due to stinging tentacles. Such as with hammer, bubble, torches and some brain corals.

While I still feel LPS corals are beautiful, This time I went mostly SPS on the available real state, I feel you can add more variety close to each other this way and results are quite stunning

I feel the LPS corals mentioned can't really live this close to each other, I keep some of the LPS that survived lower and use the top real state for SPS as they are more demanding on light

I do not have any of the stinging LPSs this time around though...

Here is how tank it is turning into with SPS mostly.

Michael43 · May 15, 2016

Very nice there

Sabellafella · May 15, 2016

ive always kept everything, im more into sps but lps is a big part on my side of the hobby also. Im not big on the "refugium/low nutrient/ carbon dosing" way of doing it but i assume lps wouldnt fair well in something like zeovit. As for advice, i would just let it be, do waterchanges, dosing/reactors, water clarity and consistency with everything (parameters, maintenance) nd good husbandry. Some people just devote their tanks to sps, BUT i need movement in my tank lol. Only thing i dont keep are leathers nd stuff like that. If you want check my buildthread, maybe theres somthing that could be of help to you bud!

zoomonster · May 15, 2016

I have always run mixed tanks but for the past few years more SPS and much less LPS than I might normally have. That's just the way it worked out this time but the biggest issue with almost all LPS is they throw out sweeper tentacles and kill or damage stuff. Right now I just have a lobo, wellso and some acans. I do have quite a few mushrooms, florida and yuma ricordia, Z&P's and one green nepthea. Softies introduce chemical warfare and necessitate running carbon which in turn may cause HLLE issues with tangs. One of those types of shrooms actually grew up and damaged my lobo but fortunately I caught it quick. I don't attempt to run ultra low nutrient so that makes life simpler too. Overall its doable but mostly need to have space for stuff so you minimize tank warfare.

Russ265 · May 15, 2016

Sabellafella said:
ive always kept everything, im more into sps but lps is a big part on my side of the hobby also. Im not big on the "refugium/low nutrient/ carbon dosing" way of doing it but i assume lps wouldnt fair well in something like zeovit. As for advice, i would just let it be, do waterchanges, dosing/reactors, water clarity and consistency with everything (parameters, maintenance) nd good husbandry. Some people just devote their tanks to sps, BUT i need movement in my tank lol. Only thing i dont keep are leathers nd stuff like that. If you want check my buildthread, maybe theres somthing that could be of help to you bud!

well rounded strategy here!

Salty1962 · May 15, 2016

One of the issues that people discuss is how LPS corals like their water with higher nutrients. Of course this is just the thing that you don't want with SPS corals, they like their water to be nutrient free. I run a mixed tank and when I get it where the SPS corals like it my LPS corals don't do as well.

BluewaterLa · May 15, 2016

a mixed tank is possible and done successfully by persons long term that fully understand where these corals come crime and their requirements.
Sps ( reef building corals ) come from the outer edges of the reef shelves with nutrient poor ( not having abundance of food ) water.
LPS corals come from lagoons and shallows on the inside of reefs where nutrients and sediments/ detritus concentrations are higher, so more food.
Having a dominant sps system is low in the food sources that LPS need and the light requirements and flow are different as well. There are many ways the two are different in water quality requirements.
Keeping LPS healthy and growing long term ( years, not one or two ) is hard to do in a CLEAN water or nutrient poor tank, this is the reason why LPS seem to suddenly decline or die after a year or two in a mixed reef tank.
Today's trend of super clean water quality, zero phosphates and nitrates added to the excellent and efficient protein skimmers among other equipment strip the water of essential amino acids and fatty acids needed for coral nutrition. This is one part of the reason you see more successful tanks that are dominated br LPS only or sps only. A large portion of people are able to keep corals in a mixed reef merely alive and surviving not well and thriving, there is a difference.
I found myself being successful for years with a mixed LPS and softie tank and unsuccessful when trying to keep sps in the same system. Still at the time where I started to strive for good water quality, removing soft corals and introducing sps I was having mixed results. Time moving forward and the tank was becoming lower in nutrients and better dosing habits I found all sps were thriving super well and my LPS after two years of coexisting with sps were starting a slow decline in health. I lost a few colonies and some new frags of LPS before having that duh moment, I essentially starved my LPS corals slowly as conditions weren't quite kosher for them.
I now have a sps dominant tank with a few LPS mixed in with some leathers and some zoa/ palys, I contribute this success to being slightly under skimmed, dosing amino acids which are easily metabolized by all corals and allowing my nitrates to stay around 5ppm and phosphates around 0.03. I feed my LPS meaty foods among other things to supplement their diet all while watching my sps on a daily basis for any changes in color or other factors as signs of declining health.

It isn't impossible to maintain a mixed reef tank, in my experience throughout my years of reef keeping and my opinion, it is more work and harder to keep a mixed reef happy and thriving long term.
Keeping involved, testing daily and gaining the "trained eye" of experience helps tremendously in keeping balance and knowing what is needed or what needs to be done to fix a problem before it's a disaster.

Hope this helps, good luck and happy reefing
BluewaterLa/ Mike

BluewaterLa · May 15, 2016

Just a note about oxygen.
Most tanks with happy LPS geared towards them specifically, have lower flow rates that LPS like better.
Sps seem to like heavy flow and they do, one main reason usually not considered is oxygen. In a high flow tank, more oxygen is able to pass through the dense sps colonies. This flow of oxygen is crucial to the sps as it grows larger, thicker and more dense. Sps will die off in low flow spots of the colony or die completely from lack of oxygen flow to all the tissue.
This heavy flow touches not only on oxygen, it also has to do with the intake of nutrients ( carbonates, foods, etc.) and waste removal from the metabolic processes of the coral.
Probably more information than needed,

this explains why some sps corals decline or die off with out explanation after they grow into even small colonies.
These flow conditions alone can strip flesh from LPS corals.

jamessreeftank · May 16, 2016

Michael43 · May 16, 2016

So let me be completelay ignorant for a minute. My water parameters are generally around 5-maybe 10 tops nitrate(I have s decent amount of fish) and phos usually is around .02-.03. I have always really had lps and softies. Some lps being expensive stuff... I am now adding sps or really just acros and montis. I have a good amount of stick frags and again some being expensive. JF homewrecker, WD, lots of RR stuff. I feed the tank reef chili and roids about every 5 days and target feed the chalices meaty food about twice a week. So if I'm slightly u swears ding these parameters won't in the long term be good for my sps? The rest of my parameters are stable as well and I have a doser doing 2 part. Thanks for the helps guys. So far everyone seems happy but I know it could be more of a long term effect or lack of growth I guess I could eventually see

BluewaterLa · May 18, 2016

Michael43 said:
So let me be completelay ignorant for a minute. My water parameters are generally around 5-maybe 10 tops nitrate(I have s decent amount of fish) and phos usually is around .02-.03. I have always really had lps and softies. Some lps being expensive stuff... I am now adding sps or really just acros and montis. I have a good amount of stick frags and again some being expensive. JF homewrecker, WD, lots of RR stuff. I feed the tank reef chili and roids about every 5 days and target feed the chalices meaty food about twice a week. So if I'm slightly u swears ding these parameters won't in the long term be good for my sps? The rest of my parameters are stable as well and I have a doser doing 2 part. Thanks for the helps guys. So far everyone seems happy but I know it could be more of a long term effect or lack of growth I guess I could eventually see

Not understanding the last few sentences, as I'm sure there were some typing errors. " so if I'm slightly ding these parameters...) not sure I follow.
Your parameters seem fine for sps and LPS. You are trying to keep a somewhat low nutrient system and you are feeding your corals which is good.
The good or bad nutrients in tanks are widely misunderstood, for example people tend to say softies like dirty water. This doesn't mean that you should keep your nitrates and phosphates sky high. Softies and LPS do however like, come from and thrive in nutrient rich waters. These nutrients spoke of are not nitrates and phosphate or ammonia. Good nutrients are not able to be tested for by Us In this hobby with test kits.

The point of me writing and posting the above mentioned was to help shed some light on reasons why soft coral or LPS corals start to decline in tanks that keep sps growing and thriving well as the tank is nutrient POOR. These corals as we call them all, are from different environments with different nutrient levels, flow and Light intensity.
I say light intensity because on the reef in nutrient poor conditions the water is well clear, having no or little sediment. In a lagoon setting the water is shallow but also has a higher concentration of sediments which make the water more murky, filtering some sun light.

I think maybe you have misinterpreted my above post and the intent, maybe I am not being thorough or clear on the information I am posting.
I am not saying it is impossible to keep a successful mixed reef, it is however harder to keep balanced for the different corals have slightly different needs.

happyhourhero · May 18, 2016

I am late to the party but I keep a mixed reef but it leans more sps heavy. I just feed my fish at will, drip kalk and test Alk and Mag here and there.

Wilsoni · May 18, 2016

I run an SPS dominant mixed reef nano. It's definitely a challenge keeping everything balanced and happy but I've found a happy medium. I dose NoPox, 2-part, feed heavy, wet skim and have AWC setup.

Yes it keeps me wet but at the end of the day it's totally worth it

hart24601 · May 19, 2016

My mixed reef:

http://www.reefedition.com/reef-spotlight-bret-hartmans-120g/

Hardest issue is pretty much flow. All corals are fed a lot, undetectable phosphate, dose nitrate to 1ppm bit only sps don't like 0 nitrate.

reefaholix · May 20, 2016

As everyone else has been saying I to have a sps dominant tank but do have quite a few lps as well I have found that the lps that tend to do best in my system are the chalice and acans as they are placed lower in the tank and don't tend to complete for space and or light with the sps that are kept in the medium the higher light area's of my system . I don't know if this helps but it is what I found works for me and my system.

Drmiami · May 20, 2016

Great write up hart! I like your conclusion and your point on what is "best". It is impossible to try all methods and combinations on our reefs with so many variables animals and different products.

I think the measurement of success is keeping our healthy animals long term. I also agree to being open minded of new discoveries and methods as this is still a very complex task that does not have a definitive answer.

Thank you for sharing your post