How to successfully keep SPS Corals!

[jorahx]

2 words! FLOW and STABILITY - you will grow anything

Yeah I have lots of flow! It looks amazing for my torches.

 

[bif24701]

How does having softies effect sps?

Not directly. He maybe assuming that the parameters that you have maybe suited more towards softies than SPS/Acros. Acropora are less forgiving and requires tighter parameters also cleaner water than softies. It’s possible that keeping a system ideal for SPS and especially acros may not do well for softies.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Yeah I have lots of flow! It looks amazing for my torches.

If your doing frequent waterchanges with saltmix that close to your tank(mainly ALK), I would look into your lighting or light acclimation. I use a Par meter now and mount new arrivals to 100-150 PAR and move up or down depending on where more light is until they are used to 250PAR 2-3week. By this time they are encrusting and do much better then when I threw them on the sand for a few days and put them in their final spot. I found I was waiting longer for corals to get going when I was impatient at first. If its not getting better frag a few pieces and mount them to different areas in the tank. I guarantee the ones you think will die will thrive (low flow low light areas). Flow is important but good indicator of too much flow is lack of PE. I don't believe it Lots of flow I believe in lots of variable flow

 

[jorahx]

Tonight when I get home I'll update my params. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[gpwdr]

How does having softies effect sps?

They fight off each other by releasing poisons into the water (biological warfare).

 

[vetteguy53081]

Flow and stability yes, but this is a huge challenge for many. I have been in the hobby almost 30 years and have seen even the novice grow everything and/or nothing.
Parameters must be stable (not all over the place or periodically changing) and the big one is flow. I have seen many tanks where flow was very low and very high, yet successful in both instances.....which raises question - Which is Best?

I myself have been long challenged in raising SPS but suddenly over the last year , all has gone well whatever happened. Monitor-monitor-monitor your conditions regularly and although a pain, it seems those with most success are the ones who do water changes regularly.

 

[Ghxst]

How does having softies effect sps?

They come from entirely different ecosystems. They share the fact that the come from the ocean and other than that it’s hard to please both types. In my mixed reef I have everything. So when all my Corals look great except X type, it’s because a little tank can’t appease all types. Lighting, flow, water chem and biological issues all factor in.

If you only have a 20 gallon you can’t meet the lighting and flow needs of demanding sps without nuking softies. You can have easy to take care of sps and and a couple sps SPS that will do well regardless, like WD for me. Everyone made good comments so if you don’t want to kill corals try out some easy ones take in the advice of these folks and go slow. You can do it. It won’t be easy or fast. Can’t wait to see!

 

[Ghxst]

Placement is also huge. A PAR meter can save a lot of guess work like Ashish said. Here is an old pic before I redid my rock for 10 new sps but you can see how things can work together. Note how low the Bonzi can go and do great at all levels. It took a year to adjust.

 

[Scott.h]

@jorahx

IMO it would be more difficult trying to keep numbers stable in a smaller tank. The small volume of water would really be a chore to keep stable. Just changing water could be enough to shock corals to not grow or use elements for a few days. About the time things stabilize its time to change water again. It's not the numbers (to an extent) but more keeping those numbers solid for many corals. These fluctuations could come from anything from the evaporation and no ato in a small tank to using dosing pumps.

 

[bif24701]

They fight off each other by releasing poisons into the water (biological warfare).

Also yes

 

[Ashish Patel]

don't get caught up in the SPS need "lots of light" and "lots of flow". In a small tank I feel the best flow would be a seaswirl return and 1 good powerhead. I moved my mp40s far as possible from the SPS they don't generally do well with linear flow they like it when flow is coming at them in multiple angles - this is hard to do when a powerhead is blowing across them in one direction. When theres more space there tends to be turbulence. Nutrients have to match your light intensity or photoperiod, there is no way around this since i had a PAR meter I was blasted my tank with radions Gen 4 at 100% for few months until I realized this was not ideal for the SPS In my tank. After so much trial and error I now have my radions at total intensity at 33% and my 2XMP40s at around 30%. As I mentioned it not lots of flow its lots of variable flows, same can be said of lighting, lots of good usable Lighting which is the reason I added t5s to supplement the LED and now getting 200-300 PAR to my SPS. My nitrates are 5PPM and phosphates are 0.02-0.5 and once I got this stable and I left the lighting alone the corals grew fast!

 

[jorahx]

Thank you guys for the help! I'll put this all into consideration when trying to figure out the sps.

 

[Mr.Fishtank]

How does having softies effect sps?

Some soft corals release toxins. If they build up too high it can effect other types of coral.

 

[TwentyfiveCents]

How does having softies effect sps?

It won't effect sps at all don't know why that was said....but what's true is flow and stability....you can have cheap lights but you can't have bad flow or instability

 

[pdiehm]

well, out of the blue after 3 months of brown, my purple/green slimer started showing signs of green. Had some casualties due to my attempt to try the red sea growth program, but things have survived, and I went back to my 9.0dkh/420-450 ca/1400 mg levels.

one thing I have noticed is my rainbow stylophora, while happy, polyps extended, has not grown much, if at all. my cliff's acro from boom has had some incidents. while cleaning, knocked it off the rock, and broke off the plug. The plug has since been covered in bright green flesh (a good thing), and am waiting for it to grow upwards. The piece that broke off the plug broke into 2 pieces. One piece looks like it'll recover. The other, looks like it's losing its flesh. Hard to tell to be honest.

I'm happy to say that, things are alive, and while not overly growing fast, are alive, and for the most part colorful. Looking into getting some more stylo's, maybe a birdsnest or 2, and some milli's. Not sure I'm ready for the non-fuzzy sps corals at this juncture, but am happy things have for the most part survived my experimenting with the red sea growth program that I ceased when I saw reactions that just didn't jive well.

 

[pdiehm]

duplicate

 

[mcarroll]

Had some casualties due to my attempt to try the red sea growth program, but things have survived, and I went back to my 9.0dkh/420-450 ca/1400 mg levels.

No nutrient levels? Where are they?

And which of these are you referring to? Trying to diagnose but no idea which. :)

REEF CARE RECIPES™
Provides an easy to follow guide on how to implement the Reef Care Program on the main types of Reef Systems.

 

[pdiehm]

My nutrient levels were 3ppm NO3, 0.01 PO4.

I was doing the SpS dominated recipe with the elevated alkalinity for growth.

 

[mcarroll]

RECOMMENDED MAIN WATER PARAMETERS
Salinity
35 ppt
1.025@25°C
Calcium
430
ppm
Magnesium
1280
ppm
Alkalinity
8
dKH
Nitrate
0.25-0.5
ppm
Phosphate
0.01-0.02
ppm

My nutrient levels were 3ppm NO3, 0.01 PO4.

I was doing the SpS dominated recipe with the elevated alkalinity for growth.

I see very low nutrients and carbon dosing in the mix.

Dangerous combo IMO.

3ppm is pretty low NO3. 0.01 ppm PO4 is effectively zero in many tanks.

Seems like nothing more than a nice coral growth spurt would be required to bottom out your phosphates under that scenario. Success = fail???

Carbon dosing has the potential to have some really negative side-effects. Especially under low nutrient conditions.

(If you want to go by one of the Red Sea programs, try the Mixed Reef program. Just remember in all these cases they aren't telling you anything about the ecology that's needed to support the system you're trying out. ;))

 

[pdiehm]

i was in communication with Red Sea, they recommended 12.6 alk.

I will cease the dosing of the nopox until things rise :)