How to successfully keep SPS Corals!

[stingman]

90 gallon standard tank sps dominated

Dkh-11
Ph-7.8-8.1
Po4-.04
No3- undetectable
Calcium-400
Temp 77-79F
Magnesium 1250ppm
Salinity 1.026

Lighthing single ati blue plus 48" t5
Two chinese 120w $80 fixtures non dimmable
Two viaqua 150 titanium heaters
35gallon sump with 6 gallon refugium lit by a cree 18w led standard houshold bulb at 5000k in a clamp lamp refugium has deep sand bed LR and cheato as well as a leafy macro
A chinese gfo reactor i run brs regular gfo at 1 cup i change 1 tablespoon of gfo weekly
I also run a biopellet reactor with TRopic marin pellets 3 cups i add a tablespoon a month or so to top off
2 koralias
1 mp10 vortech
350gph return
Aqua c Ev180 skimmer

I feed very heavily 4-5 times daily with new life spectrum, macro marine algea and mysis

My bio load is large i have 4 tangs 3 clowns chromis manderins matted filefish shrimp linkia stars hermits snails mini serpents, astrias ect.

I have stylophora montipora acropora poccilipora seriatapora millepora lps and a couple soft corals gorgonians and nps corals. Loaded and growing strong.

The key to growing sps is simple keep whatever parameters u have stable especially alkalinity I dose nothing but kalkwasser mixed with vinegar and change 5 gallons of water every sunday using redsea cp, i do not use rodi nor have i ever this is not recommended by me it is just how i do it i have good tap spring water this tank is a little over a year old and has had tremendous growth on a light budget and very stable the trick to stability is just to do every thing you do slowly lots of tiny water changes rather than less frequent big ones change media small portions at a time and let things mature keep your hands out of the water and dont make big changes. Ive had sps lps soft reefs for 12 years now. Biggest issues i ever had was trying to introduce coral to a imature tank my tank is not a low nutrient system and ive found alk ranges from 10-12dkh work well in this tank in lower nutrient tanks ive had with small bioloads i prefer to be in the 7.5-9dkh range. Its also not easy at this point to find a stable consistent salt at those ranges ive used tropic marin pro reef regular and bio actif as well as io. rc, rscp, brightwell aquaforest and and oceanic. I picked the rscp due to its consistent dkh reading. I will be trying salinity for the next bucket as ive heard positive things about it. Ive found corals and fish do better at 1.026sg or 35ppt salinity. Also helps get full potential of the calcium concentration in the salt. Ive run calcium reactors balling method and dosing two part with limited success i prefer kalkwasser mixed at 5 gallons water 8 teaspoons kalk 150 ml white distilled vinegar in ato my pump chamber holds less than a gallon so the ato runs alot again lots of small doses are better than one big dose.....

 

[Elegance Coral]

WHAT CORAL IS THIS? i need it in my tank so badly

Looks like an ORA blue milli.

 

[dh350twin]

WHAT CORAL IS THIS? i need it in my tank so badly

Palmers blue Mille

 

[fragit]

I've never tried a calcium reactor, but the possibility of alk swings has scared me off. Too many people seem to have problems dialing them in and I've read more than enough horror stories of tank crashes due to huge alk swings. I find two part with kalk in my top off provide rock solid parameters with less chance of problems.

@ Braves Fan - My DT is a 180g and I have a 55 gallon sump with a 10g frag tank plumbed in. The larger frag tank is a seperate system.

So your dosing 2 part BRS (Alk+Ca), and also Kalk? Couldn't you just do one or the other?

 

[fragit]

Okay this thread is seriously cool. I can't believe it's been running for like 4-5 years. It did go on a tangent about light meters etc. So having said that what is a good and free LUX app for iPhone?

 

[mcarroll]

It turns out that's not an easy answer because phones sometimes are too smart about managing the light coming in via the aperture. This pretty much prevents getting an accurate sample of a bright light source.

At $15, it's hard for me to think of any reasons not to get an inexpensive handheld lux meter. [emoji106]

It is decidedly less risky than using your phone around salt water too. [emoji41]

 

[fragit]

It turns out that's not an easy answer because phones sometimes are too smart about managing the light coming in via the aperture. This pretty much prevents getting an accurate sample of a bright light source.

At $15, it's hard for me to think of any reasons not to get an inexpensive handheld lux meter. [emoji106]

It is decidedly less risky than using your phone around salt water too. [emoji41]

Any suggestions of brand and where to buy? Before I broke down my last system 3 years ago I switched to a DIY LED from rapid led and never tested it for par/lux so I'm very curious.

 

[mcarroll]

Okay this thread is seriously cool. I can't believe it's been running for like 4-5 years. It did go on a tangent about light meters etc. So having said that what is a good and free LUX app for iPhone?

I love tangents.

 

[mcarroll]

Any suggestions of brand and where to buy? Before I broke down my last system 3 years ago I switched to a DIY LED from rapid led and never tested it for par/lux so I'm very curious.

If you do a search for "LX1010B" or at most "LX1010B lux" you'll find the model or an equivalent - they are a commodity item. Any place like Amazon or eBay is likely to have them.

 

[Shiggs]

i don't post much, but here goes.

tank- 120 oceanic, lights- tek t-5 5 blue+, 2 pink+ and one aqua blue special.
add kalk through the ato for calcium, alk and ph control. also a luft pump for 3 minutes every couple of hours after the lights go out.
eco mag. twice a week.
10% water change every 3 months or so.( i know, but it works)
tank is a little over 5 years old. there is another 30 gal lps cube plumbed to it.
also have a nice size mangrove in the sump.pro clear protein skimmer. no vortechs. can't bring myself to spend the money.
i think thats it, but if you have any other questions just ask. thanks

What kind of protein skimmer do you have?

 

[aquavista99]

Best advice for SPS success: stability and time ... Nothing good happens quickly .

 

[dragonfish]

stability

 

[Air_Cooled_Nut]

...

That said you generally do not want to have zero nitrates and zero phosphates as both are required nutrients for most critters - corals too.
...

Whoa, really?! I thought it had to be zero so...what is an acceptable max level for nitrate? I'm thinking about SPS but am a newb to aquarium husbandry.

 

[mcarroll]

Like almost everyting about the hobby, it's not a "more is better" scenario....it's "more balanced is better".

"More is better" is almost always worse....unless you're talking about water changes.

The problem is not that there are nutrients...even "a lot" of nutrients can be pretty-well tolerated and even used for faster growth.

The problem is when natural cycles are exceeded and the system gets out of balance - most often from over-stocking or over-feeding.

Nutrient accumulation of any kind is a symptom of this. This is happening when you can detect the nutrient in a water test.

Sometimes it's nitrates.

But most tanks - thanks to the marine nitrogen cycle - seem to have a pretty healthy capacity to cycle nitrogen. (Note the arrow leaving the water that is not marked "water change".)

Usually, the only time you see the nitrogen cycle over-run is under a regime of gross over-feeding along with a lack of detritus-removal. An unkempt mechanical filter will also cause production of nitrate faster than the cycle can deal with them. It's much less likely, but too little flow and/or too little biological surface area in the tank can also cause this.

Phosphates are the most likely to accumulate.

Also most often from over-stocking or over-feeding.

Since there is no natural phosphate cycle to deal with moving the excess to the atmosphere - notice no arrows pointing out of the water - this is when phosphate removers like GFO and aluminum oxide, etc (band-aids) start being used.

Dealing directly with these symptoms on a routine basis is a mistake IMO. You want to deal with the cause - the root of the problem - which as I've said is generally over-stocking or over-feeding. Get a balanced system.

Lower stocking levels lead to a naturally balanced system (no additives necessary) where available phosphate is consumed along with the nitrogen it was originally "packaged" with. Predominantly in the form of fish food, then later fish poop - all good food for corals as well as the whole microbial food web.

Many corals and few fish in a very large system is my ideal.

I think my 50 gallon is a decent example of this:

• 50 gallons
• Three 1" Barnacle Blennies
• Packed half- to completely-full of stony corals
• No cleanup crew, but I'd like to add two or three black Cerith snails - that's my norm.

It has proven to be a very resilient system that responds very well to any ordinary dosing and water change scheme...SPS thrived even during the years I was dosing the system completely by-hand.

I have a daughter now. Since then the system receives close to zero attention...I have automated dosing, I feed about once every week or two and I keep the skimmer emptied. The system is getting around one or two water changes per year currently.

The system - even the fish - still by-and-large thrives. I've never had to touch my sand bed in the 38 gallon tank - the underside of the bed is visible and still aragonite-white (no fouling).

So to recap, the problem is exceeding your tank's natural capabilities...not ___ level of a particular nutrient.

(FYI, I post about most of the happenings on my tanks...it's a stable system, so there aren't a ton of postings...but you can click my username and look up my tank's history, if interested.)

 

[revhtree]

Nice post!

Like almost everyting about the hobby, it's not a "more is better" scenario....it's "more balanced is better".

"More is better" is almost always worse....unless you're talking about water changes.

The problem is not that there are nutrients...even "a lot" of nutrients can be pretty-well tolerated and even used for faster growth.

The problem is when natural cycles are exceeded and the system gets out of balance - most often from over-stocking or over-feeding.

Nutrient accumulation of any kind is a symptom of this. This is happening when you can detect the nutrient in a water test.

Sometimes it's nitrates.

But most tanks - thanks to the marine nitrogen cycle - seem to have a pretty healthy capacity to cycle nitrogen. (Note the arrow leaving the water that is not marked "water change".)

Usually, the only time you see the nitrogen cycle over-run is under a regime of gross over-feeding along with a lack of detritus-removal. An unkempt mechanical filter will also cause production of nitrate faster than the cycle can deal with them. It's much less likely, but too little flow and/or too little biological surface area in the tank can also cause this.

Phosphates are the most likely to accumulate.

Also most often from over-stocking or over-feeding.

Since there is no natural phosphate cycle to deal with moving the excess to the atmosphere - notice no arrows pointing out of the water - this is when phosphate removers like GFO and aluminum oxide, etc (band-aids) start being used.

Dealing directly with these symptoms on a routine basis is a mistake IMO. You want to deal with the cause - the root of the problem - which as I've said is generally over-stocking or over-feeding. Get a balanced system.

Lower stocking levels lead to a naturally balanced system (no additives necessary) where available phosphate is consumed along with the nitrogen it was originally "packaged" with. Predominantly in the form of fish food, then later fish poop - all good food for corals as well as the whole microbial food web.

Many corals and few fish in a very large system is my ideal.

I think my 50 gallon is a decent example of this:

• 50 gallons
• Three 1" Barnacle Blennies
• Packed half- to completely-full of stony corals
• No cleanup crew, but I'd like to add two or three black Cerith snails - that's my norm.

It has proven to be a very resilient system that responds very well to any ordinary dosing and water change scheme...SPS thrived even during the years I was dosing the system completely by-hand.

I have a daughter now. Since then the system receives close to zero attention...I have automated dosing, I feed about once every week or two and I keep the skimmer emptied. The system is getting around one or two water changes per year currently.

The system - even the fish - still by-and-large thrives. I've never had to touch my sand bed in the 38 gallon tank - the underside of the bed is visible and still aragonite-white (no fouling).

So to recap, the problem is exceeding your tank's natural capabilities...not ___ level of a particular nutrient.

(FYI, I post about most of the happenings on my tanks...it's a stable system, so there aren't a ton of postings...but you can click my username and look up my tank's history, if interested.)

 

[mcarroll]

Nice post!

Thanks!

 

[Viner87]

Tank size

75 gallon 48"L x 18"W x 20"H with 40 gallon custom sump

Parameters

Alk 9
CA 450
Mag 1450-1500
Salinity 35 ppt (specific gravity 1.026) - Reef Crystals salt
temp 79-80


Equipment

Geo 618 calcium reactor
Aqua C EV-120 skimmer
Radium 250 watt MH lighting in Lumenarc Mini reflectors with IceCap ballasts
2 x 48" Sunbrite LED actinics
Eheim 1260 return
Closed loop with Super Dart pump and Oceans Motions Super Squirt compact
Reefkeeper 2 controller

Photoperiod

Actinics 7:30 AM to 10:30 PM
MH 11:30 Am to 7 PM

Feeding

Fish get fed a very small amount of Formula One flakes once daily
Corals get fed 5ml of Oyster Feast and Phytoplankton or RotiFeast every other day or so (when I remember)

Maintenence

10 gallon water change every 2 weeks

The last picture was just before I took this tank down 2 weeks ago and moved everything to a 200 gallon tank with LED lighting. Several of the corals had grown to the front panel and reaching the coraline to scrape it was impossible without breaking something. Everything was so grown together and intertwined the left side pretty was one solid mass. This should be a good test to compare LED to MH.

@rossco didn't I read somewhere that you use Red Sea pro salt?

If so, how do you manage to keep your alk low during water changes - I keep my tank at around 8.6-9.3, but when I do a 10% water change using Red Sea pro it spikes to 10+ [emoji30]

 

[Lenny_S]

This is a great thread, hope my contribution helps someone...
I did some trial and error figuring out the secret sauce to keeping SPS in my system. I think that a good starting point is to balance your system out to some set of target parameters in the range of what is known to be desirable for SPS. But at the end of the day that is only a starting point and there will need to be refinements that make your coral happy in your particular system.
I have friends and relatives in the hobby, and with the approach I used that helped tremendously. I adjusted my system, with nothing but fish and LPS to a good set of parameters (in the low range), lighting and flow that were in the recommended ranges for SPS. I chose the low end of the ranges because it is far easier to increase than it is to decrease.
My starting point....
Ca - 400
Alk - 7.2 dKH
Mg - 1280
NO3 - 0.00
PO4 - 0.00
Lighting - 60% power on 4 AI Hydra 26s on a 60" long 24" high 160 gallon tank (est. PAR 150 mid way down the tank)
Flow - Gyre 150 running pulse every 8 seconds (horizontal, top of tank) @ 30% and 2 Korallia's facing oposite direction on a wave controller 10 second pulse.

My reefer friends and relatives help each other out all the time, so I acquired a variety of SPS frags and a frag rack from them for basically nothing. It included 3 different acros, a milli, and 2 different montis.

Put them in the frag rack on the sand bed and waited to see what happened. Almost immediately the acros and milli browned, and had very little PE. The montis did fine although did not look as great as they did in my friends tanks. I took the approach of changing just one thing at a time to see how the corals reacted. So first was flow, since that is easy and can easily be reversed. I started to increase the Gyre 10% every couple of days. Eventually I started seeing more PE on the milli and a couple of the acros, although during this time I lost one of the acros. The montis also showed improvement. But I was starting to see some pretty constant circular current even with the Korallias facing the opposite direction. So I started adjusting the pulse duration, shortening it on the Gyre and the Korallias. Eventually I found a combination that gave me good PE and the pieces stopped degrading, but at this point I lost another acro and the milli. The montis were now looking as good as they did in the tanks they came from. In the end I ended up with the Gyre running at 70% pulse with a 3 second pulse time, and the pulse on the Korallias was dropped to 5 seconds. It is the highest flow rate I can get without either tearing up my LPS or blowing sand all over the tank.

Next item was lighting. For the same reasons as flow, I chose this because it is easy to do and can be reversed/changed easily. I got some replacement pieces for the acros and milli I lost and added them back to my tank. This time they did not immediately degrade like the first round, but they still had very poor color after a couple of days. With the frag rack still on the sand bed I started slowly increasing the lighting. It takes much longer to see results from changes so I recommend at least a week for each change to see what happens. The step-by-step isn't that important, but I played with intensity, spectrum, and peak photo period. In the end I got to a highly blue/indigo dominated spectrum, much higher intensity, and a longer photo period. I also ended up adding 2 TrueLumen 48" Marine Fusion strips front and back of the row of AI's to fill in for some shadowing. The ramp up just before and ramp down just after the peak photo period and run at 75%. This profile started giving me some better coloration, especially in the montis, and even better PE than the much lower settings...

The last thing I adjusted was water parameters. I started with NO3 because I read in a number of threads that nitrate dosing has helped other reefers get better coloration. So I slowly started to raise my NO3 and saw positive results in just a couple of days. As soon as I hit about 0.5 ppm of nitrate the color really started looking great. And looking at most of the pieces at night I could see a lot more florescence under the deep blue moonlight. I basically stopped there with that parameter and let it go a couple of weeks like that. While I saw excellent coloration, I didn't see virtually any growth or encrusting.

So next I started raising Alk, being that this was known to help with SPS growth. I slowly increased the Alk by 0.1 dKH every other day. By the time I got to 8.0 dKH the encrusting started to accelerate, but the color was starting to fade a little. So I went back to the NO3 and increased it to 0.75 and the color improved again. After a little bit more experimentation, I found that an Alk of 8.4 dKH and a NO3 of 1.25 ppm gave me excellent color and very good growth. This took a very long time, like a couple of months.

Then I started raising calcium. I have to say this isn't worth much talking about. I got to 440 ppm of calcium and saw absolutely no difference other than having to dose slightly higher to maintain my Alk. I would say that as long as you are somewhere in the 380 - 460 range, you're good and probably won't see a lot of impact from changes within that range.

I never really touched Mg, I left it alone and almost completely ignore it at this point. I also never touched PO4, it is probably present, but used up so quickly that I can't detect it with the standard Hanna phosphate colormeter.

In the end after several months my system seems to be able to support SPS pretty successfully. My contribution to this thread is that there isn't a set of conditions you can get from someone else or a book that will necessarily work for your particular system. Finding the right combination of parameters, light, and flow for your specific system is a must. I recommend that you try with a small variety of frags from tank raised colonies to make your adjustment. It is a far less frustrating and less costly way to discover your systems optimal environment for SPS. And once you find that environment keep it as stable as possible. Once you start stocking heavier and heavier you need to keep pace with your water parameters to keep them exactly the same (or close as you can). Swings of even very small amounts can spell disaster in an SPS tank. And keep in mind that there may still be certain varieties of SPS that simply will not keep in your system. I have tried a couple of times with certain specific corals and they never seem to make it. I suggest you simply do not try to keep those types, and certainly don't start changing things to try and accommodate them. Placement in the tank (flow and light areas) is the only thing you should experiment with once you have set your environment. If after trying a couple of different places with different pieces and they still fail, just move on.
Hope some of you find this useful, just wanted to contribute what I could to what I think is a really great thread. Cheers!

 

[Goobagg]

This is a great thread, hope my contribution helps someone...
I did some trial and error figuring out the secret sauce to keeping SPS in my system. I think that a good starting point is to balance your system out to some set of target parameters in the range of what is known to be desirable for SPS. But at the end of the day that is only a starting point and there will need to be refinements that make your coral happy in your particular system.
I have friends and relatives in the hobby, and with the approach I used that helped tremendously. I adjusted my system, with nothing but fish and LPS to a good set of parameters (in the low range), lighting and flow that were in the recommended ranges for SPS. I chose the low end of the ranges because it is far easier to increase than it is to decrease.
My starting point....
Ca - 400
Alk - 7.2 dKH
Mg - 1280
NO3 - 0.00
PO4 - 0.00
Lighting - 60% power on 4 AI Hydra 26s on a 60" long 24" high 160 gallon tank (est. PAR 150 mid way down the tank)
Flow - Gyre 150 running pulse every 8 seconds (horizontal, top of tank) @ 30% and 2 Korallia's facing oposite direction on a wave controller 10 second pulse.

My reefer friends and relatives help each other out all the time, so I acquired a variety of SPS frags and a frag rack from them for basically nothing. It included 3 different acros, a milli, and 2 different montis.

Put them in the frag rack on the sand bed and waited to see what happened. Almost immediately the acros and milli browned, and had very little PE. The montis did fine although did not look as great as they did in my friends tanks. I took the approach of changing just one thing at a time to see how the corals reacted. So first was flow, since that is easy and can easily be reversed. I started to increase the Gyre 10% every couple of days. Eventually I started seeing more PE on the milli and a couple of the acros, although during this time I lost one of the acros. The montis also showed improvement. But I was starting to see some pretty constant circular current even with the Korallias facing the opposite direction. So I started adjusting the pulse duration, shortening it on the Gyre and the Korallias. Eventually I found a combination that gave me good PE and the pieces stopped degrading, but at this point I lost another acro and the milli. The montis were now looking as good as they did in the tanks they came from. In the end I ended up with the Gyre running at 70% pulse with a 3 second pulse time, and the pulse on the Korallias was dropped to 5 seconds. It is the highest flow rate I can get without either tearing up my LPS or blowing sand all over the tank.

Next item was lighting. For the same reasons as flow, I chose this because it is easy to do and can be reversed/changed easily. I got some replacement pieces for the acros and milli I lost and added them back to my tank. This time they did not immediately degrade like the first round, but they still had very poor color after a couple of days. With the frag rack still on the sand bed I started slowly increasing the lighting. It takes much longer to see results from changes so I recommend at least a week for each change to see what happens. The step-by-step isn't that important, but I played with intensity, spectrum, and peak photo period. In the end I got to a highly blue/indigo dominated spectrum, much higher intensity, and a longer photo period. I also ended up adding 2 TrueLumen 48" Marine Fusion strips front and back of the row of AI's to fill in for some shadowing. The ramp up just before and ramp down just after the peak photo period and run at 75%. This profile started giving me some better coloration, especially in the montis, and even better PE than the much lower settings...

The last thing I adjusted was water parameters. I started with NO3 because I read in a number of threads that nitrate dosing has helped other reefers get better coloration. So I slowly started to raise my NO3 and saw positive results in just a couple of days. As soon as I hit about 0.5 ppm of nitrate the color really started looking great. And looking at most of the pieces at night I could see a lot more florescence under the deep blue moonlight. I basically stopped there with that parameter and let it go a couple of weeks like that. While I saw excellent coloration, I didn't see virtually any growth or encrusting.

So next I started raising Alk, being that this was known to help with SPS growth. I slowly increased the Alk by 0.1 dKH every other day. By the time I got to 8.0 dKH the encrusting started to accelerate, but the color was starting to fade a little. So I went back to the NO3 and increased it to 0.75 and the color improved again. After a little bit more experimentation, I found that an Alk of 8.4 dKH and a NO3 of 1.25 ppm gave me excellent color and very good growth. This took a very long time, like a couple of months.

Then I started raising calcium. I have to say this isn't worth much talking about. I got to 440 ppm of calcium and saw absolutely no difference other than having to dose slightly higher to maintain my Alk. I would say that as long as you are somewhere in the 380 - 460 range, you're good and probably won't see a lot of impact from changes within that range.

I never really touched Mg, I left it alone and almost completely ignore it at this point. I also never touched PO4, it is probably present, but used up so quickly that I can't detect it with the standard Hanna phosphate colormeter.

In the end after several months my system seems to be able to support SPS pretty successfully. My contribution to this thread is that there isn't a set of conditions you can get from someone else or a book that will necessarily work for your particular system. Finding the right combination of parameters, light, and flow for your specific system is a must. I recommend that you try with a small variety of frags from tank raised colonies to make your adjustment. It is a far less frustrating and less costly way to discover your systems optimal environment for SPS. And once you find that environment keep it as stable as possible. Once you start stocking heavier and heavier you need to keep pace with your water parameters to keep them exactly the same (or close as you can). Swings of even very small amounts can spell disaster in an SPS tank. And keep in mind that there may still be certain varieties of SPS that simply will not keep in your system. I have tried a couple of times with certain specific corals and they never seem to make it. I suggest you simply do not try to keep those types, and certainly don't start changing things to try and accommodate them. Placement in the tank (flow and light areas) is the only thing you should experiment with once you have set your environment. If after trying a couple of different places with different pieces and they still fail, just move on.
Hope some of you find this useful, just wanted to contribute what I could to what I think is a really great thread. Cheers!

How high off the water do you have your Hydras?

 

[Lenny_S]

How high off the water do you have your Hydras?

I use the AI Classic rail kit, the lights are just a little over 10" AWL.