Looking for some great NPS builds to see where the technology we have has taken us.

[pledosophy]

Is anyone keeping NPS these days? Links to recent builds would be helpful. I am in the planning process for a 25g NPS cube and would love some knowledge.

Thanks!

 

[Naso110]

Interested in adding some nps sponges and gorgonians to my seahorse tank, following...

 

[pledosophy]

Interested in adding some nps sponges and gorgonians to my seahorse tank, following...

I actually have quite a bit of experience with this.

NPS and seahorses seem like a perfect pair, but often times the hitching of a seahorse will irritate the coral to the point of death.

I had several times I thought I had finally figured it out, especially with gorgonian's; then one day my barbouri would make that gorg his new favorite hitch and a week later it was dead from the hitching point up.

The other issue is the food size is so radically different. Seahorses need quite a lot of large food. NPS need quite a lot of small foods. That is a tremendous amount of food for one system.

If you want to try NPS in a seahorse tank based on my experience I would recommend sun corals. Try to direct your flow in the aquarium to push the detritus towards them. Seahorses have such an inefficient digestive system that seahorse poop is fabulous sun coral food.

 

[Naso110]

Never considered the different food size factor. Great point! The ponies are on mysis and definitely too large for gorgonians. The Duncan's do well and do capture some mysis already. Sun coral would be a good match and are gorgeous coral. Thank you.

 

[J1a]

I keep quite a fair bit of NPS in my mixed reef. Feel free to take a look at my build thread.

Imo NPS are really nice!

 

[pledosophy]

I keep quite a fair bit of NPS in my mixed reef. Feel free to take a look at my build thread.

Imo NPS are really nice!

Appreciate it!

I am really looking to find some people who are keeping dedicated NPS tanks to tweak my tank build plans before. I read through a ton of stuff on a few sites but all of it is kinda old. I am surprised these corals faded out of popularity. With the availability of mini fridges, DOS pumps, and magnetic stirrers being so available now I could see them being really popular.

 

[J1a]

NPS has a lot of appeal for me.

By the way, I don't think it's necessary to have all those complicated gears to feed NPS. I use freeze-dried planktons, and broadcast feed the whole aquarium twice a day. Not much different from feeding fishes.

 

[velvetelvis]

I have a couple of black sun corals (Tubastraea micrantha) and some orange Tubastraea, along with what I think might be a Dendrophyllia. They're the only NPS I've had any luck with, as I don't have a dedicated system set up. I also keep sponges and nephtheids in the same tank--they can cope with the higher nutrient levels.

 

[Eros_Wolters]

I actually have quite a bit of experience with this.

NPS and seahorses seem like a perfect pair, but often times the hitching of a seahorse will irritate the coral to the point of death.

I had several times I thought I had finally figured it out, especially with gorgonian's; then one day my barbouri would make that gorg his new favorite hitch and a week later it was dead from the hitching point up.

The other issue is the food size is so radically different. Seahorses need quite a lot of large food. NPS need quite a lot of small foods. That is a tremendous amount of food for one system.

If you want to try NPS in a seahorse tank based on my experience I would recommend sun corals. Try to direct your flow in the aquarium to push the detritus towards them. Seahorses have such an inefficient digestive system that seahorse poop is fabulous sun coral food.

I keep a NPS system with some seahorse, its true that they can irritate the gorgonians but I haven’t experience one dying. I have a really big aqarium, 220 gallons and my only fish are 3 seahorses. What I think is kind of a advantage, is that seahorse don’t eat small zoo plankton so they can breed safely in your system, so rotifers and copepods can ultimately become a natural food source for nps corals. I also keep a lot of macro algae in my tank, my nps corals don’t seem to mind some light since I keep them mostly in shaded areas, the macro algae is a good place for zooplankton to breed and a way to deal with nitrates.

 

[LisaAP]

I keep a mixed reef with a fair few NPS corals, mainly the easier LPS ones but some NPS gorgonians etc too. I'd like to try NPS dedicated but haven't quite plucked up the courage yet, plus NPS corals are quite hard to find over here. I do know some reefers with amazing dedicated NPS tanks but sadly they are not members of this forum.

 

[Doctorgori]

following, I just removed a 2nd tanks from my cabinet which was originally going to be FOR just NPS, …originally it was to catch missed food before going to the rollermat….
the cost of obtaining corals was frustrating and not cost effective….
glad as heck you mentioned smaller food size…
still might reconsider
edit add: where is the OP getting corals from? or anyone else