How to successfully keep SPS Corals!

[Leslie Tabor]

I just found this thread, and now feel I must work on my tank ALL WEEKEND! These are just beautiful! Thank you all for sharing your knowledge, I am hoping to put it to good use...then maybe one day I will contribute! ;):D

 

[CoralManz]

Matt, the way I've come to see the health of stony corals is divided into two areas, one is the Nitrate/phos area which if kept in the proper range will yield healthy corals with good color and appropriate polyp ext. Of course light and flow are in there too.The second area is alk, ca and mag.If these numbers are low, which mine were, then the skeletal structure of the corals will be compromised. A good example of this would be one of my monti caps, I no longer have the piece(they grow too fast and shade too large of an area) but I noticed when my alk had been low for quite some time rather than being crisp when broken or fragged like a potato chip it was almost mushy internally.

Re fragging or pruning, I have a separate frag and prop system that I keep cloned to my main system with water transfees so as I cut, I mount, dip and drop the cuttings into the frag tank. In regards to frequency, I treat it like bonsai and will study the piece a bit to find the right cut that will yield a good result regarding shape and clearance to surrounding corals. Also cutting deeply enough so as not have to trim again for a while.

I'm not big on selling corals and give most of them away. This is one of my favorite parts of the "hobby". I'm also the VP of my local reef club so the raffles gobble up most of my frags. We had a frag swap recently and I brought over 60 nice pieces. Aftersetting up for the swap I realized I had gone through over 300 frag plug in the past 6 months.

Talk about sharing the wealth,that is so thoughtful and also a great insurance plan.

 

[tankaholic]

just found my bedtime story tonight....i cant grow sps's to save my life....hopefully this changes things...

 

[JayTT]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but just wanted to say a huge thank you,it's threads like this that made me Join R2R & I'm genuinely interested to see a fresh perspective from ours in the UK lovely tanks everyone and some solid advice :)

 

[JUNICHI YAMASAKI]

beautiful

 

[Acro maniac]

So it is sometimes better to start it out with easy to source frags like montis, birdsnest to watch how they do first.

Reading through this thread is was actually thinking this. It is a good place to start monti's and birdnest are pretty forgiving and could give you an idea if you want to try acropora and Millipore. But if you don't have success with the monti and birdnest. Chances are your not going to have success with the the latter. Also monti's and birdnest are readily available fairly cheep considering the price of sps.

 

[Acro maniac]

I would like to also know how long these successful tanks have been successful? And we're the corals grow from frags or purchased as colonies? And do any of you have time lapse shots ?

 

[awais98]

Bump for an excellent thread.
So it's seems like chemistry stability is the most important thing especially dkh.

 

[asandbox]

busy and neglected my tank this summer, my sps looks like its melting off, salinity was threw the roof, two moths before summer my return pump burns out and spilled oil and killed my fish so bioload down and i got a clam i herd they clean the water what could it be?

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Just bumping a great thread! :D

 

[dh350twin]

Yes let's keep it going

 

[Grant W]

Hey all, glad to see this thread still going. I'll be stopping in again. And yes the tanks still up lol

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

I'll be rereading soon myself!

 

[Grant W]

Hey Rev

 

[Biggles]

Don't forget the basics - they're happiest when kept underwater ;)

 

[oneilwiz]

All I can say is wow, you guys inspire me big time, I definitely need to redo my tank. I have a mix of LPS, SPS and softie. I am terrible with SPS no matter what I do. At this point I feel to give up after years of keeping corals ( not a expert obviously). I lost a lot of corals ever since my move in June.

At this point I need to complete reinvent my tank and stick with a specific tank;

SPS dominated or Soft corals or LPS Only

Would love to hear everyone thoughts on this: Keeping a specific type tank.

 

[bif24701]

My system is three months old, a 180 gallon display, 300 total system volume.

Equipment:
Lighting: 2 Kessil AP700
Skimmer: SRO-5000 10"
Return: RO Varios-6
Flow: 1 Vortech MP60, & Tunze 6105
Neptune APEX, Full
Kalk added to ATO maintains 9.5 dKH, 430 Cal
Two part equipment auto dosing ready when needed, for now Kalk dose all I need.
100 gallon sump
40 gallon cheato refugium
Much more stuff


I have 5 tangs and other fish.



About 60 corals, SPS all types, LPS acans, hammers.

I Maxima Clam

My corals are doing well. Growth and coral are all outstanding. My goal for this tank is to be acro dominated and everywhere.

I try to keep my parameters stable and so far have been able to keep them rock solid!
NO3- 2-3ppm
PO4- .03-.02 ULR Hanna

Once I got my low pH problem licked I've seen huge growth from almost every coral and the others have some growth.

I feel like I'm going in the right direction and could use some tips from any pros out there.

 

[gregcoyote]

Corals grow exponentially. The more polyps the faster it grows.

 

[Acronuts]

Just curious with the sps keepers.
How long do you keep your frags at the bottom to get used to your lighting etc before you start to move them to their permanent location?

Once the corals are acclimated to the tank, if the sps frags have not started to encrust the plug, do you keep it on plug and glue it to the rock or do you keep the plug its on and glue that to the rock as well?

If its encrusted I would think that you would just glue the whole thing.

 

[G8trBait16]

WOW That is a MONSTER Clam!