Minimum Equipment to keep a healthy SPS aquarium?

[jonzee2006]

I would say that the bare min would be:
water movement
skimmer
good lights

I have had a basic set up like this and it did great for me

 

[m and m]

I think atleast an additive does help to keep the water clean,like Bio Pellets!I need to add that!

I dont think any extra po4 no3 exportation is needed, just some WC and carbon. All other methods are "extra" thats why not every one does them.

 

[swannyson7]

I'm surprised that good test kits haven't been mentioned. All too often people seem to dive into SPS, then run into problems and start posting for help as everything RTNs. Without an accurate set of parameters, it's near impossible to draw any solid conclusions.

 

[m and m]

I think the Absolute minimumm and cheapest would be

- Vodka (cuts out a phose rex and water changes as a means of no3/po4 export)
- Good skimmer DON'T SKIMP
- Good Lighting I refer T5's for more custom lighting and there pretty cheap
- Flow some old tunze's on a controller wont be much any more.
- Two part and test kits two keep the parameters accurate
- Heater
- MOST important alot of time and reading.
Everything else would be extra and just a luxury to have like a ATO would be nice but with a good schedule and knowing your system you could keep everything stamble

Said it on page one i think a tank without test kits is a tank with out hope. How can you track Alk with out it or doomed with out quility test kits.

 

[swannyson7]

I stand corrected!

 

[drainbamage]

bare minimum? something to circulate water (small pump but your hand in the tank 5 times a day could work) and some lighting- I've done a micro tank with SPS before, its just not very fun.

Above posts have the realistic answer- Water changes, water movement, lighting, and you're good-everything beyond that is to help make it easier to keep, not the bare minimum

 

[raymond]

does the equipment vary as the number of sps in a tank do? what i mean is can u get away with a few with alot less equipment then if you had a tank fully stocked with sps

 

[davelink]

if you have a tank stocked with sps, hopefully youll invest in things like skimmer/heater/chiller/powerheads so that you dont hope for the best and lose everything to some random temp flux or bio overload or anything like that. safeguards give you room to play with, like feeding heavily and not worrying about nitrate and phosphate outbreaks. corals like to eat!

 

[davelink]

running a heater and chiller all the time also makes sure ur temp doesnt drop or go up more than a couple degrees when it gets really hot or cold, which is pretty key for sps imo

 

[OceanMinded]

Stable Water
Good light
A consant dosage of Ca,Alk,and Mag
No nitrates,nitrites,or ammonia,knor po4

Thats all I know needs to be in place.

this

 

[drainbamage]

does the equipment vary as the number of sps in a tank do? what i mean is can u get away with a few with alot less equipment then if you had a tank fully stocked with sps

Depends on the equipment we're talking about. As far as the bare minimums of water movement and lighting-no. You need some bare minimum of both of these, it's not like a budget where you can partition the lighting towards the corals that need it the most. That said, as you get more SPS's, you may need additional powerheads to reach areas that are blocked by colonies, or to allow you to place corals in places that your rock structure was otherwise blocking some flow. Same with lighting, if you want to place colonies in the darker areas of your tank, you may need to upgrade a bare minimum lighting setup (say a light that only allows SPS placement in the top 6" of the tank, the upgrade would be to a more complete lighting system)

The other equipment will directly depend on your setup, the amount of SPS colonies being a part of that. A good skimmer will help reduce the frequency of water changes, the more SPS's you have, the more food you might be adding for them (via Ammino Acids, via fish poop, or via oyster eggs/reef diets.) If you step up your feeding because you have more colonies/bigger colonies, you may need to upgrade the skimmer.
More SPS's will adsorb more alk/calk/mag, in which case a calcium reactor may be beneficial, or else an automated dosing system. in a tank with just a few SPS, you won't need to be dosing as much, so may choose not to use equipment to do it.
Heaters/Chillers- I really disagree with anyone saying these are a must-I have 4 SPS tanks in my apartment, none of which have Chillers. This is accomplished by a temperate setting (yea, I don't have a chiller, I pay rent for an apt in San Diego) but also by running cooler lighting-T5's everywhere, no halides. During the summer when it can get hotter, fans are used, and some of the tanks get run from 6pm-3am, switching the heat production to the nighttime. Stable and in Range temperatures ARE essential, but chillers are not a must anymore.

Hope that's some help, and gives an idea of what sort of solutions the equipment provides that will determine what problems upgrading equipment will fix.

 

[m and m]

does the equipment vary as the number of sps in a tank do? what i mean is can u get away with a few with alot less equipment then if you had a tank fully stocked with sps

You mostly go by the water volume. Meaning i have 100G tottle water volume i get the skimmer that fits. Most the time with a sps tank you over size your skimmer.