SPS - Difference in success at start up

[ReefHunter006]

I’m not a guru, but I’m not a beginner with SPS. I can grow sps fairly well.

My question: Why does it seem like some can just throw a bunch of tenuis in a freshly cycled tank and skip the frags browning, or STN’ing?

I have a lot of experience growing sps, while not an expert, I have a very good understanding of what I’m looking for. Yet I drop a couple frags from my frag tank into this new tank and they are STNing over the last two weeks. Zero idea why.

po4 .1 no3 15

Frag Tank

Now my new display that is 6 months old, started fresh rocks, sand, etc. covered in coraline

Alk is stable around 7.6 - 7.9.

 

[Lavey29]

Perhaps they have a level of knowledge and skill you have not reached yet although your tank looks fabulous. Or maybe they just get lucky. As a novice reefer I tried a few at 8 months and failed. Now after my tank has turned a year I have 35 growing SPS frags and mini colonies. My knowledge and skills improved but for me it was the tank maturity that helped. I had way to much instability when my tank was new. I do admire skilled reefers who can add corals from day one and be successful.

 

[billyocean]

Good seasoned live rock is a major help to start with, preferably from the existing system. If you have enough of that then it's nothing more than fresh saltwater..assuming it's the same salt you are using in the other tank. Then match par and flow

 

[ReefAddict16]

If your tank is 6 months old and the acros are dying I’d definitely check the pumps for rust and do an ICP.

 

[ReefHunter006]

If your tank is 6 months old and the acros are dying I’d definitely check the pumps for rust and do an ICP.

I do ICP every two months. Nothing trending out of ordinary.

 

[billyocean]

Sounds like lack of maturity in the tank..I took 20 lbs I had in my 125 and put it in a 20 gallon tank and had acros in it the next day no problem

 

[ReefHunter006]

Sounds like lack of maturity in the tank..I took 20 lbs I had in my 125 and put it in a 20 gallon tank and had acros in it the next day no problem

Maybe but there are a number of build threads out there that started with 100% fresh rock and acros within the first three months. Which we usually attribute to skill or knowledge.

maybe I don’t have that skill or knowledge but spending at minimum at hour on my tanks a day for years, you’d think I would have found whatever that secret was.

just frustrating a bit.

 

[billyocean]

Maybe but there are a number of build threads out there that started with 100% fresh rock and acros within the first three months. Which we usually attribute to skill or knowledge.

maybe I don’t have that skill or knowledge but spending at minimum at hour on my tanks a day for years, you’d think I would have found whatever that secret was.

just frustrating a bit.

I hear ya...I'm surprised everyday my tank hasn't crashed out of nowhere..lol. having a good start of seasoned bac helps though.

 

[rusgum]

I always run the system on live rocks. I plant my acropores one to two weeks after I have leveled the phosphate. I never had a loss. there are no secrets.

 

[djf91]

I think it has to do with the bacterial and microbiome maturing. I think the length this process takes for some species of bacteria is greatly underestimated.

 

[ScottB]

I think it has to do with the bacterial and microbiome maturing. I think the length this process takes for some species of bacteria is greatly underestimated.

Agreed. I will never start an SPS system with dead rock. I am just not that patient.

 

[djf91]

Agreed. I will never start an SPS system with dead rock. I am just not that patient.

Going through it right now. Would not recommend. SPS is growing a little bit, but dealing with GHA/cyano is miserable. I feel like the rock is still trying to figure itself out.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Yeah, i got a feeling a lot of it has to do with the microbiome and of course stability... stability is much easier to measure though than the microbiome so things seem to just "not work out" for no reason when the microbiome isn't quite there yet

 

[ScottB]

Going through it right now. Would not recommend. SPS is growing a little bit, but dealing with GHA/cyano is miserable. I feel like the rock is still trying to figure itself out.

Yeah, the biome is just a really noisy place for a good long while without the diversity that comes with age. All the different surface competitors battling for space. Film bacteria and coralline take a while to spool up and compete with all the different uglies. The uglies are just a part of the process unless you jump start with a lot of live rock.

My 1 (maybe 2) month old frag tank is humming along nicely. Helps to stock the sump with 200lbs of rock I've kept alive for years.

 

[djf91]

Yeah, the biome is just a really noisy place for a good long while without the diversity that comes with age. All the different surface competitors battling for space. Film bacteria and coralline take a while to spool up and compete with all the different uglies. The uglies are just a part of the process unless you jump start with a lot of live rock.

My 1 (maybe 2) month old frag tank is humming along nicely. Helps to stock the sump with 200lbs of rock I've kept alive for years.

Super fragile too it seems. I had a bunch of corraline die off when my alk. dropped 0.5 dkh.

 

[ReefHunter006]

You’d think with all the coraline in this tank it wouldn’t have a problem with sps.

 

[Toob]

You’d think with all the coraline in this tank it wouldn’t have a problem with sps.

That is an impressive amount of corraline for 6 months! I have a tank that is 4 months old, growing some corraline (thought not like yours) and have identical nutrients that are very stable, and a very stable alk at 8.0.

Some SPS do fine for me, albeit slow growing (a green tabling acro, a stylo, a mille, a bill murray, red planet, some rainbow thing).

Yet others are impossible for me after multiple attempts (bali green slimer, any monti, all oregon torts…).

Drives me nuts! Everyone seems to align on stability - which makes sense but if corals dropped dead at the slightest change in parameters, how does anyone successfully transfer them from an LFS, online retailer, or buddy with potentially very different parameters?

 

[Gatorpa]

I always run the system on live rocks. I plant my acropores one to two weeks after I have leveled the phosphate. I never had a loss. there are no secrets.

You’ve never had an SPS develop STN?

How long you in the hobby

 

[Wrassenaround]

I’m not a guru, but I’m not a beginner with SPS. I can grow sps fairly well.

My question: Why does it seem like some can just throw a bunch of tenuis in a freshly cycled tank and skip the frags browning, or STN’ing?

I have a lot of experience growing sps, while not an expert, I have a very good understanding of what I’m looking for. Yet I drop a couple frags from my frag tank into this new tank and they are STNing over the last two weeks. Zero idea why.

po4 .1 no3 15

Frag Tank

Now my new display that is 6 months old, started fresh rocks, sand, etc. covered in coraline

Alk is stable around 7.6 - 7.9.

Having read through this thread it would appear I am the anomaly in question here. In regards to having success with SPS in a "newer" tank, I have pounded mine with flow and 300+ par. I introduced 6 acro/milli frags in August, 2 months after starting my tank. They came in fairly colored up from TSA and have since lost a lot of their color as I don't have nearly the same amount of nutrients that TSA does in their tanks.

However, the polyp extension has been phenomenal and they have encrusted over all of their plugs and on to the rock work. We all know that SPS need tons of flow and high light and I think that leads to the best success rates. I had 5 acro frags in my old 20 gallon tank that had been running over a year and they all withered away within a month or 2. They had plenty of nutrients and light but lower than ideal flow. I really do think it comes down to the essentials, FLOW and PAR.

Honestly I also feel like a lot of it has to do with Luck, sometimes we seem to forget that we are dealing with living animals and even if we give them pristine conditions they don't make it. That's what makes the hobby interesting (at least to me) is that the challenge and the unknown always keeps me working to make things better.

 

[ReefHunter006]

Having read through this thread it would appear I am the anomaly in question here. In regards to having success with SPS in a "newer" tank, I have pounded mine with flow and 300+ par. I introduced 6 acro/milli frags in August, 2 months after starting my tank. They came in fairly colored up from TSA and have since lost a lot of their color as I don't have nearly the same amount of nutrients that TSA does in their tanks.

However, the polyp extension has been phenomenal and they have encrusted over all of their plugs and on to the rock work. We all know that SPS need tons of flow and high light and I think that leads to the best success rates. I had 5 acro frags in my old 20 gallon tank that had been running over a year and they all withered away within a month or 2. They had plenty of nutrients and light but lower than ideal flow. I really do think it comes down to the essentials, FLOW and PAR.

Honestly I also feel like a lot of it has to do with Luck, sometimes we seem to forget that we are dealing with living animals and even if we give them pristine conditions they don't make it. That's what makes the hobby interesting (at least to me) is that the challenge and the unknown always keeps me working to make things better.

I have four mp40 and 4 reef wave 45 blowing around this tank. I love high flow, but I do believe I have more than enough. Do you think so?

I acclimate the frags starting at 200par near the bottom.