The tips to sps

[GHOSTLY]

Also only have a 13.5 gallons. Just a tad bit overkill but I’ll be keeping it lower intensity

 

[Gtinnel]

Also only have a 13.5 gallons. Just a tad bit overkill but I’ll be keeping it lower intensity

A tad overkill is a huge understatement. Why such a powerful light for that size tank, do you plan on upgrading, or just got it for a good price?
Also, a little confused that you said on the first page that you need to not buy any expensive equipment and then you upgrade to a Radion light. I'm still guessing you probably got it for a really good price.

 

[GHOSTLY]

A tad overkill is a huge understatement. Why such a powerful light for that size tank, do you plan on upgrading, or just got it for a good price?
Also, a little confused that you said on the first page that you need to not buy any expensive equipment and then you upgrade to a Radion light. I'm still guessing you probably got it for a really good price.

your right. I do plan on upgrading and it was for a good deal. Cmon your telling me you would pass a Radion XR30w pro with the arm and a reef link for 190? It works fine. I sold my kessil a80 so I payed 30 extra to get a Radion

 

[Gtinnel]

your right. I do plan on upgrading and it was for a good deal. Cmon your telling me you would pass a Radion XR30w pro with the arm and a reef link for 190? It works fine. I sold my kessil a80 so I payed 30 extra to get a Radion

You are absolutely correct. Whether I needed it or not for that price I would've bought it.

 

[GHOSTLY]

Well thanks for all these tips! Im just starting to mix salt brands so one I get the parameters I need SPS Will be bought

 

[ppatches24]

This ^^^^. I find that my sps do the best when I keep my parameters, mainly alkalinity, stable. If I allow my alkalinity to fluctuate I end up with the occasional RTN, but when I keep it completely stable the acroporas do well. For the easier SPS like birdsnest and monti it doesn't seem to matter nearly as much.

Would you call a daily swing of .2 - .4 non stable?

 

[Gtinnel]

Would you call a daily swing of .2 - .4 non stable?

Seems good to me. I use a trident with controlled dosing and I can't get my swings any lower than about .25 with testing 4 times a day.
Some of the difference will be testing inaccuracies.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

You don't need them.

But you do have to test salinity, alkalinity, calcium, and arguably magnesium. You will probably have to dose. That's just part of keeping stony corals.

But that can be cheap and fairly easy too. You can mix up solutions and hand dose if you want. Pickling lime and baking soda are very cheap.

You must also test nitrates and phosphates for a successful reef most of the time. Especially someone who is asking these type of questions. And second to this the reef hobby there is no cheap way unless you like the very hard way IMO. I own 2 apex 2 trident 5 dos and many many other things and my acros grow amazing. I would not give up ((the expensive equipment as you say)) for anything because I have a life outside of my reef tanks and otherwise would never be able to keep up

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Also only have a 13.5 gallons. Just a tad bit overkill but I’ll be keeping it lower intensity

Another suggestion is more water volume makes it easier to keep stable. With a small tank small things like evaporation alone causes swings

 

[GHOSTLY]

Another suggestion is more water volume makes it easier to keep stable. With a small tank small things like evaporation alone causes swings

i plan to start auto top off with all for reef mixed into it so that it becomes stable. Of course AFTER I get SPS

 

[Maximitsurugi]

I wish this would have worked for me! Granted I didn't do it with the CO2 reactor and a monitor, but...

I have a heavily stocked 30-gallon nano-reef and I was going through more Soda Ash in 24 hours than is safe to adjust with a single dose. I bought a cheap dosing pump off of Amazon and I have been a bit disappointed with it because in order to get consistent results I had to dilute the calcium or soda ash with RO water and dose more liquid more often. Even then it was somewhat inconsistent.

I tried setting up a KW drip to see if that would help stabilize the system. It kept the Calcium stabilized fairly well but I still had to manually add Soda Ash. After 2 weeks I finally stopped the KW drip.

In spite of "Decent" growth on the acros, i.e. a couple of inches per 6 months, I know the daily swing of KH had to be hard on them. At this point, short of buying a Neptune system, I was willing to try just about anything that didn't break the bank. Then I saw this on Amazon:


What the heck, for 10 bucks I will give it a try.

I put RO water in it at first just to let it add makeup water to see how much water the tank needed per day so I could calculate the dose of KH. The tank used approximately 16 ounces out of 20 ounces per day. I was currently adding 15ml of Soda Ash per day and going backward. I added 20 ml to the bottle, filled the rest with RO water, and put it on the tank. As the water would evaporate, it would make up the water along with an appropriate dose of KH... Theoretically.

To my surprise and pleasure, the KH was right where it was supposed to be the next day, and after the bottle was empty I refilled it again and let it go again. After a week of daily testing and tweaking the Soda Ash dose per bottle, I finally didn't have to test daily. I am back to testing weekly and the growth in 3 months has been twice what it was for the previous 6 months.

Obviously, this isn't right for everyone, but hey it worked for me in a nano tank.

You could also get a dosing pump that is super accurate and mix a container of Kalkwasser to saturation and let the doser do the additions instead of an ATO or drip. Just start slow and see how much you need daily and programme the doser to match. I think a Kamoer X1 pro would work. Just don't let the pickup line go straight down into the saturated Kalk powder. You could also mix and separate the sediment.

Also to the Acro argument, my biggest tip is leave well enough alone. If your params are stable just leave it! Enjoy the tank. Greed will consume us all. Always trying to eek out the next bit of growth or colour and half the time we do so much that we don't know what caused the positive and worse the negative swings. Let alone the fact that the tank takes a week or two to react to something done today.

 

[GHOSTLY]

is alk around 10 ok and is Mild flux of water parameters ok for easy to keep SPS And Montipora?

 

[((FORDTECH))]

is alk around 10 ok and is Mild flux of water parameters ok for easy to keep SPS And Montipora?

This is a question that there is way to many answers that can be given. The alk number alone can not be concentrated on alone like you are doing. To many factors play a role here that directly relate to alk. Your alk has to be proper number accosiated with the nutrient levels you are running (nitrate and phosphate) and then the light intensity comes into play either being to bright or not bright enough for those levels. It’s hard for me to explain this because I’m not a scientist but I can say you can’t just choose any alk number I think it’s gonna work while you disregard the other two or three things you will have nothing but problems. I understand you’re looking for the easiest and cheapest way to grow SPS but so are thousands of other people out there And there’s usually no easy answer because everyone wants to skip steps and thinks it’s supposed to be easy but good luck with this wish you the best and hope you have a fat check book and a lot of patience

 

[GHOSTLY]

Ok! If anyone else has anymore tips for keeping them alive please let me know! I’m not a big fan of lps but love sps