Is it inevitable that an SPS dominated reef tank will crash?

[ReefGrammie]

My first reef tank was a 46-gallon bowfront. I ran T5 lighting, was the human ATO, and dosed calcium and a few other things sporadically. I did water changes, though I wouldn't even say regularly. I had beautiful coral for over 5 years in that tank. When I upgraded to my 90 gallon then, I seemed to struggle from the get go. I thought I light acclimated the coral to my new LED fixture, but maybe I didn't do such a great job. The tank did just "ok," but I eventually lost all of the SPS. I thought I was going to tear it down, but started a reboot last fall with a new LED fixture. After a few horrible algae outbreaks, I have started adding SPS again. I hope the tank can eventually do as well as my first tank! I guess time will tell. Some of my frags have spread beyond the plug and onto the rock, so I'm encouraged so far!

 

[MentalNote]

Provocative question.

Sure, on a geological timeline, everything will fail. Also, our systems are reliant on constant external inputs and the maintenance of those systems (water change, dosing, electricity feeding, etc.)

Is my SPS system destined to crash? My human ego says "heck no."

 

[FishTruck]

Depends on what you mean by "crash"... to me that means that the tank gets taken down due to an irreversible catastrophe.

I'm not the best or most careful reefer - but, in 10 years with a single 300 gallon tank.... I experienced 3 major regressive events where I lost major portions of my SPS - sometimes losing an entire species in the tank. But.... there were always SOME sps survivors that could be nurtured back and I have some that I have taken along to my new tank.

This was due to mistakes with managing alkalinity or lighting. A full on crash can be avoided. Some boom and bust with SPS is probably inevitable over a period of... say 10 years.

 

[aqua_code]

Until a robot is designed to manage my reef tank I have to answer yes on this one. Even when that is developed, will still need battery backup and a constant supply of nutrients from future owners. And the robot will need maintenance.

 

[Reeffraff]

Just to note, in my case I did have a generator, but I was in the Lower Florida Keys where Irma made landfall as a Cat 4 storm. There was no gas available at all down there for over a month, so when I ran out of gas for the generator, it died along with my tank. I managed to keep everything alive for a week before that happened.

Yeah, nothing you can do in this case other than be thankful to be alive. Kudos for your effort on keeping things going as long as you did given the circumstances.

 

[Drew Fitzgerald]

If money was no object and you could afford to have a "back up" of EVERYTHING then, NO.
Sadly, I dont have enough ££££ or space to store a "back up" of every piece of equipment including a tank.

As Murphys law states "Anything that can go wrong, eventually will go wrong". However, I think you can AVOID a tank crash if you can tick the following 4 boxes.
1.You are at the right place at the right time.
2. If you regularly maintain your equipment
3. If you do regular water tests
4. You have the knowledge how to react PROPERLY when something goes wrong.

This equals either having loads of free time on your hands or own good tank montioring equipment (APEX)...and a back up!!!!

 

[aqua_code]

There are external variables that come into play as well. I remember reading about an incident that happened to Paul B where his water supply added zinc orthophosphate. Even with proper maintenance/testing/backup an event like this could wipe your corals.

 

[hart24601]

I was responsible for a SPS reef tank at work (public aquarium) for about ten years. It was a journey
But the last 4-5 years the tank was really stable and quite easy to maintain. The first years were a struggle, but also a good way to learn.
So to get to the questions, I do not think a SPS tank will inevitably crash. I think if you keep up the maintenance, keep the water quality good, things gets easier with time. IMO old tanks gets more stable. They have tuned themselves in some way.
But you need to keep up with changes and sometimes you need to really cut back corals and almost restart parts of an old tank. It’s easy to just be happy with the corals growing, but after not too long you don’t get any light down to the lower parts of the reef, or the flow gets too low, for example.

Here’s a video my colleague did from the tank.


I’ve started writing an article on this tank. Not because it’s the greatest tank, but since it’s like an old friend/enemy to me. And I have a “logbook “ on this tank 2010-2019, which is pretty fun to go through. Unfortunately we had to take the tank down last year due to a large rebuild. We saved all the corals

I think this aligns to my viewpoint as well. Really when it comes down to the cutting back of corals and restarting some colonies. I wouldn't say a SPS tank will 100% crash, but individual corals will. Tanks are a finite amount of space and SPS grow very quickly, they will block flow and light at some point - you won't always be able to catch this, and sometimes this leads to chain reactions.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

Seems like a mixed reef is a safer bet. The SPS dominant reef requires two part dosing and any death often sets off a chain reaction. A mixed reef with just a few SPS would seem to be less of a "house of cards"

 

[Aquarimatt5000]

I have had two small crashes and acros rtn. First time a wet side magnet went. I was only checking magnets once a month so could not work out hag the issue was. Decided to check and complete full maintenance of equipment and found it. A few acros pulled through from single polyps.
recently a near new wet side did the same thing. This tim checked magnets and found it within a few hours. Also check sides with weekly water change now. Some sps pulled through with rtn. All acros rtn. Some are again coming back from single polyps. Appart from those issues tanks been doing well for 3.5 years. No lps were effected through this.

 

[thermoJoe]

I think the question is a bit too open for me. I can see several reasons for a tank crashing:

1. Component failure or aquarist failure (i.e., neglect, improper environmental control, poor pest management, etc).
2. Life expectancy of SPS coral.
3. Gradual buildup or loss of critical chemical constituent that the reefing community is currently unaware of and does not control/monitor (i.e., "old tank syndrome").

Many have committed on point 1, but that happens with everything, so not really relevant. 2. I think SPS coral life expectancy is long enough that that also doesn't matter (but, I'm sure we don't really know the answer for all Acropora species). That leaves item 3, which I think the reefing community has done very well at. That is, it seems we can maintain SPS tanks indefinitely, but there are many better and more experienced aquarists here who may feel differently.

My biggest issue with "failure" is too much success. Unless you are really good and vigilant at pruning rock, your beautiful reef tank will eventually turn into an atol. Not too long ago I had to tear down most of my tank because it was mostly bare rock, with the living coral crammed into the top few inches of the tank. From the top, the tank still looked pretty good, but from the sides, not so much.

 

[Rjmul]

I know I will have a lot of criticism by saying this but I don't mind to be wrong in order to learn.
For me bacteria population reduction is a reason why Sps tank will crash eventually if we don't replenis. In the 90 we had a lot of successful tank with mature colony and even though the reefer keeping up with maintenance task and without equipment failure Sps start dying and we named it old tank syndrome. Some blame on phosphate and nitrate release from old sand bed but for me I observed that with a reef tank we start out with live rock and sand to create place for bacteria to populate and reproduce. In time as Coral grow the bacteria population will running out of space to provide adequate numbers to support the system.
Bacteria get eaten by corals, skim out by protein skimmer and die off so without replenish eventually the population will reduce and created an imbalance biology leading to Sps die off.
Without proper testing it's hard to proof this theory is correct but with intelligent reduction of all parameters causing the reef tank to crash then bacteria is the last suspect.

Very good point that isn't often talked about

 

[TBS]

Unfortunately I have to say yes. SPS corals in well managed tanks in time out grow the tanks ability to satisfy their needs. Maintaining a balance between the producers of waste with the consumers of waste becomes impossible unless the aquarist removes some animals or adds more water and space; eg., go from 500-gallons to 1000-gallons. Also, I've had SPS table top corals, as they grow, cut off light to other corals below them.

 

[Ciscodog]

I was responsible for a SPS reef tank at work (public aquarium) for about ten years. It was a journey
But the last 4-5 years the tank was really stable and quite easy to maintain. The first years were a struggle, but also a good way to learn.
So to get to the questions, I do not think a SPS tank will inevitably crash. I think if you keep up the maintenance, keep the water quality good, things gets easier with time. IMO old tanks gets more stable. They have tuned themselves in some way.
But you need to keep up with changes and sometimes you need to really cut back corals and almost restart parts of an old tank. It’s easy to just be happy with the corals growing, but after not too long you don’t get any light down to the lower parts of the reef, or the flow gets too low, for example.

Here’s a video my colleague did from the tank.


I’ve started writing an article on this tank. Not because it’s the greatest tank, but since it’s like an old friend/enemy to me. And I have a “logbook “ on this tank 2010-2019, which is pretty fun to go through. Unfortunately we had to take the tank down last year due to a large rebuild. We saved all the corals

That was an amazing journey through sps heaven. Those tanks are spectacular!

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Same goes for educating those that are in your home and visitors. No, we can't light candles in here. Please don't spray Pledge on the furniture in here. And so one...

Omg I never thought about this. Is there any documentation about things like this that I can read on. My wife lights candles and sprays air freshener all the time. And how about things being cooked in oven or on stove negatively effecting tank? Hmmm I’d love to read on it

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Unfortunately I have to say yes. SPS corals in well managed tanks in time out grow the tanks ability to satisfy their needs. Maintaining a balance between the producers of waste with the consumers of waste becomes impossible unless the aquarist removes some animals or adds more water and space; eg., go from 500-gallons to 1000-gallons. Also, I've had SPS table top corals, as they grow, cut off light to other corals below them.

This is actually somewhat my point. In a "well managed tank" this will not happen. A good setup with good husbandry avoids those issues. Water changes, maintenance, trimming, refreshing of microfauna, bacteria CUC, etc are all parts of good husbandry. In a poorly managed and/or set up tank where the aquarist simply let's it go, of course it's doomed to crash...

 

[ca1ore]

If you wait long enough, everything fails .... including the aquarist! A million years from now humans will have been consigned to the evolutionary scrap heap and I’m pretty sure my tank will have crashed. Until then I fail to see why a reef tank is anymore likely to crash than any other kind of tank.

Tanks crash for a whole bunch of reasons, most of them avoidable with a bit of planning and good husbandry. Sometimes something goes awry that is out of ones control, but that is hardly inevitable. It’s a no for me.

 

[Reefasaurus X]

I think a well-managed SPS tank never has to crash. The challenge is when you get so much Coral per amount of water in the tank the Corals put a lot of demands on the water. Calcium alkalinity and magnesium start getting sucked up by the Corals at a high rate. As that happens the margin of error gets smaller. If you’re not totally on top of keeping your water parameters dialed in, one or all of those elements can easily go way out of the healthy range. It’s like the difference between a car traveling 5 mph versus 100 mph. A wrong turn of the wheel at 5 mph can be easily corrected. At 100 mph a wrong turn of the wheel and you crash. Anytime my tank has had my full attention, everything has thrived. Other times when life got in the way and I took my eye off the ball, the SPS were the first things to go. As others have mentioned, pruning is also key to maintain healthy flow and lighting throughout the tank.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

I think a well-managed SPS tank never has to crash. The challenge is when you get so much Coral per amount of water in the tank the Corals put a lot of demands on the water. Calcium alkalinity and magnesium start getting sucked up by the Corals at a high rate. As that happens the margin of error gets smaller. If you’re not totally on top of keeping your water parameters dialed in, one or all of those elements can easily go way out of the healthy range. It’s like the difference between a car traveling 5 mph versus 100 mph. A wrong turn of the wheel at 5 mph can be easily corrected. At 100 mph a wrong turn of the wheel and you crash. Anytime my tank has had my full attention, everything has thrived. Other times when life got in the way and my tank was neglected, the SPS were the first things to go. As others have mentioned, pruning is also key to maintain healthy flow and lighting throughout the tank.

True, but the equipment available today such as Trident, Alkatronic, etc. makes it much easier to maintain stable parameter without human intervention. If you are trying to maintain everything manually it better be your fulltime job on large systems...

 

[PranK]

I've had crashes in the past, probably 2 big ones.
1st one was due to a 40+ degree day (um, roughly 100F for you US peeps) and we lost power. Add to that I was on holidays and my house-sitting mate was out for 8hrs blissfully unaware of the seafood soup cooking in my house. Lost the lot. Everything. While I don't have much to stop this happening again, it was a little freakish and we regularly have power outages when it rains but its back within a few hours.
2nd one was a massive over dosing of kalk. Can't remember what caused the over dose, but it was well before I used a dosing pump and well before I gave dosing the respect it requires, so likely it was some haphazzard introduction of kalk slurry or similar. I lots most fish and most corals. Interestingly, I found a red-spot goby that I thought had died 2 years earlier. He now had the tank to himself.

SO, with that and given my much better husbandry and respect for my tank, I think I'm covered for almost all crash-worthy scenarios. I will be getting a generator soon, hopefully before Summer (November).

Honestly, I now believe that you can prepare for disasters. Maybe even write a disaster response plan incase you're not home. So many potential crashes can be avoided in the first hour or so.)

I do worry though that my placement of SPS will cause trouble for those on the sand below, but thats about all that concerns me these days. Oh, that and a crack. Cracks keep me awake.