The husbandry of NPS corals is a thoroughly neglected topic

[Muffin87]

I'm not writing this in the NPS section because I'm hoping to stir up some interest in the wider reefing community.
Nearly all general advice you find online about filtration, feeding, and nutrient reduction assumes you won't ever be keeping any NPS corals.
The assumption behind most reefing advice you may read online is that non-photosynthetic corals are just a niche nobody will be interested in.

I find it a bit sad, especially because some non-photosynthetic LPS, like Tubastrea, are apparently not all that hard to keep with the right kind of filtration, according to the few people talking about them. Also, take a look at this survey on reef2reef, it's not there's no interest in the husbandry of NPS corals.

I know a lot of reefers will want keep zoas, euphyllias, and micromussa, and then graduate to montiporas and acros, but so many species never get the spotlight. Like all NPS, or snake polyps. How often do you hear about them?

I hope other reefers also feel NPS are unjustly disregarded by the reefing literature online and offline. Would be good to share some decent articles about NPS husbandry:

Mike Cao's (uhuru) Reef Aquarium
REEF OF THE MONTH - March 2023: Dragon Lee's NPS Paradise

Daniela Stettler's tank:
The Keepers of the Sun
Le bac récifal de Daniela Stettler - Berne
Daniela Stettler's tank presentation - 2005 Sindelfingen symposium
There's a really good YouTube video by Daniela Stettler herself, I can't find it, don't know if it's been taken down.

YouTube:
Going Dark: Deepwater Fishes and Non-Photosynthetic Corals by Matt Wandell
Secrets of Sun Coral & Dendro Care!! (ft @lifeofacoral)
Kens NPS Tank Tour

Reefbuilders:
The non-Photosynthetic reef tank of Mike Cao is what Azoox reefing all about
Care Requirements for NPS Corals
Specialized Care is Key to Success with Sun Corals
Mariusz’ sun coral reef is an azoox coral paradise
Marcy’s reef is full of sweet azoox corals
Boris Bielan’s Azoox system is 800 gallons of non-photosynthetic coral heaven

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

It's highly dependent upon the NPS coral you want to keep. I've had sun corals (even black sun corals) and they didn't need anything special but to be spotfed mysis daily. I don't think it had to do with filtration with those corals. Others such as carnation corals I can see where particular filtration may cause the coral to thrive or die.

 

[Muffin87]

It's highly dependent upon the NPS coral you want to keep. I've had sun corals (even black sun corals) and they didn't need anything special but to be spotfed mysis daily. I don't think it had to do with filtration with those corals. Others such as carnation corals I can see where particular filtration may cause the coral to thrive or die.

How did you acclimate sun corals to opening during day time? That’s just something that isn’t discussed much.
I think that’s probably the difficult part about having sun corals in a reef tank that has mostly photosynthetic corals.
You can feed them at night, but then you don’t enjoy them half as much when you can actually see them.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

How did you acclimate sun corals to opening during day time?
I think that’s probably the difficult part about getting sun corals.
You can feed them at night, but then you don’t enjoy them half as much when you can actually see them.

I've never had too much difficulty getting them to open during the day after they begin to get used to being fed...try feeding with dimmed lights at first and slowly get them used to feeding under brighter light. It really doesn't take very long tbh.

 

[StubbyAcro]

A Hungry Reef 180G NPS / Algae
Waterbox 130.4 Macroalgae Display

Here are some beautiful build threads by a single person. Although the second one is not technically an NPS tank, the author had tons of filter feeders which, to my understanding, require the same basic requirement as NPS corals, which is tons of foods in the water column.

 

[WrasseyReefer]

A Hungry Reef 180G NPS / Algae
Waterbox 130.4 Macroalgae Display

Here are some beautiful build threads by a single person. Although the second one is not technically an NPS tank, the author had tons of filter feeders which, to my understanding, require the same basic requirement as NPS corals, which is tons of foods in the water column.

That tank is insane. It looks almost fake, in a good way. So many colors. You don’t see tanks like that often.

 

[Propane]

I really like NPS tanks and when I get the room I plan to start one. I saw a video not long back where someone had NPS corals in a sump type situation under his DT. Thought it was one of the nicest set ups I’d seen.

 

[elysics]

How did you acclimate sun corals to opening during day time? That’s just something that isn’t discussed much.
I think that’s probably the difficult part about having sun corals in a reef tank that has mostly photosynthetic corals.
You can feed them at night, but then you don’t enjoy them half as much when you can actually see them.

Its easier when they aren't glued down. You put them in a container that gets some amount of light, and the tiniest bit of flow (small plastic bucket/vat/box with holes drilled in clipped to the rim of the tank f.ex.). Or when they are glued down, you do the trick with the cut off neck of a big coke bottle that you can fit over them, shielding from flow and pesky shrimp and fish.

And then you balance a mix of powdered foods and something oily like frozen lobster eggs, aminos, those stinky liquid foods like min S, on top of their closed mouths. If you are lucky, pellets might work too, but super annoying to balance them I top of a mouth. In a way that it will mostly not fall off for at least 15 minutes. If you do the coke bottle thing, remove after half an hour if they aren't open yet. Don't overdo the amount, it's just for them to "smell". Repeat daily until they open, if they do, reapply the food into their open mouths. Eventually, they'll be open on their own.

How easy this is depends on how healthy they are, if they have lost the stickyness of their tentacles already, it's going to be tedious to feed them, but it will get better.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I'd say that aside from Tubastrea or Dendros which have large polyps easy to spotfeed, the tank does need to be dedicated to NPS since nutrient levels would likely be much higher than what most SPS can tolerate and probably push some LPS to their limit as well. I've never kept an all NPS tank (only NPS with large polyps) but flow seems to be particularly important for them. I've seen them in the wild and where i e seen them they always are receiving strong flow.