cleverbs
New member
I am turning my once LPS tank into an SPS tank. I have had my tank up for 1.5 years and have learned a lot about taking care of a large tank and it is now time to walk down the SPS path like I have always wanted.
Tank Setup As LPS was
220g tank
30g sump
DC-250 reef octopus
3x AI Hydras
2x Jebao WP40s
300w Heater
180 Lbs of rock
1-2" sandbed
Reef Keeper Lite
So I had a lot of changes to make when going from LPS to SPS. I started off by working from the inside of the tank out. well kind of.
One of the things I learned with my LPS tank is it was very hard to keep my cal alk mag in the right levels without dosing and this was eventually the fall of my LPS tank. So I first step before I even though about corals was to research dosing and how to do it. So I did a lot of reading to get an understanding of it then bought a Jebao dosing pump and fr starters BRS 2part kit, I will make my own 2part in the furture. This should solve my issues for awhile and if the time comes for me to have to buy a calcium reactor imo it will be a good day.
Next I wanted to address and phosphate problems so I am in the process of removin my sand bed and going back to Bare bottom like I used to have. this should help quite a bit. I havent ever had any algae issues I just dont want one to come up down the road because of my sand. I also hooked up my BRS dual media reactor to run GFO. Thanks to someone on this site I now dont feel so bad running it after finding a link for some cheap GFO
The next step was flow. I wanted to have at least 60x movement in the tank and the 2 WP40's just didnt cut it. So I got a gyre and man does that thing move some water. So now I have my 60x turn over that I wanted.
After this I thought If I am going to have a great SPS tank how can I do it without a frag tank? So I did a lot on this and built a nice display stand for the frag tank as it sits right next to the display and is plumbed into it. The tank is a 24x24x12 rimless tank with a build in overflow and currently a AI hydra over it and a Jebao RW-4 I also got some nice acrylic frag racks to keep the tank looking nice.
i also bought a second 300w heater because I currently only have 1 and cant get my water temp over 77.8 so I hope this will help me bring it up to the 79* I want it at.
Then I got to thinking about the single most important thing for SPS LIGHT!!! I have done all I can to insure water quality is up to par but what good is that if I dont have the right lights and 3x AI hydra 26s are just not going to cut it. So I did lots of reading and research on this one. I wanted to maybe just upgrade to AI Hydra 52's instead and figured that would give me enough. however as I was researching SPS tanks all along I started to see a trend...Almost no one that had a really nice SPS tank was running LED I saw a few but they where smaller cubes with a lot Radions over them. I noticed everyone was running t5ho's using the ATI sun fixture or they ran MH...This was a tough pill for me to swallow because I have never wanted to run MH because I have always run LED and when you run LED and you have never ran MH you tend to see alot of people talking trash about MH and how they cost so much more per year then LED. Well some great people on this site helped me realize well its about 30$ more a month for me to run a 72" 3-250w MH / 4- 80w T5HO fixture then it is for me to run an led. That was with bulbs included and power. I also acounted for the fact that If I was going to upgrade my LEDs to what I would need in LED it would cost me roughly 3,000$ and after 5 years it would be about a wash between the two. So I have decided to buy my first MH/T5HO system...Hamilton Cebu Sun 72" with the M80 ballast for Radiums. I will end up running 2 ATI aquablue Specials and 2x ATI Coral Plus I think. I will probably make a post and see what kind of combinations people are using I havent used a t5ho in 4 years.
So here is my SPS system now.
220g Tank
30g Sump
30g Frag Tank
3x 250w MH
4x 80w T5HO's
Gyre
2x WP40's
Reef Keeper Lite
DC-250 Reef Octopus
Dual Media Reactor
180 lbs of Rock
NO SAND
2x 300w Heaters
4x Dosing pumps (Alk, Cal, I think I may use two for auto feeding not sure one to feed one to flush the water back out)
I will post some pictures of the progress so far. It is coming along and I have gotten a few SPS for the frag tank that are doing well. I am excited to start this new jeourny in reefing and hope to be a solid part of this sites SPS keepers community.
Here are a few pictures of the tank as it sands and my frag tank that I just finished.
My SPS so far haha its a drop in the bucket commpared to what will be in there.
Heres a terrible terrible picture of the GARF Purple Bonsi.
And heres a picture after starting to remove the sand bed.
Tank Setup As LPS was
220g tank
30g sump
DC-250 reef octopus
3x AI Hydras
2x Jebao WP40s
300w Heater
180 Lbs of rock
1-2" sandbed
Reef Keeper Lite
So I had a lot of changes to make when going from LPS to SPS. I started off by working from the inside of the tank out. well kind of.
One of the things I learned with my LPS tank is it was very hard to keep my cal alk mag in the right levels without dosing and this was eventually the fall of my LPS tank. So I first step before I even though about corals was to research dosing and how to do it. So I did a lot of reading to get an understanding of it then bought a Jebao dosing pump and fr starters BRS 2part kit, I will make my own 2part in the furture. This should solve my issues for awhile and if the time comes for me to have to buy a calcium reactor imo it will be a good day.
Next I wanted to address and phosphate problems so I am in the process of removin my sand bed and going back to Bare bottom like I used to have. this should help quite a bit. I havent ever had any algae issues I just dont want one to come up down the road because of my sand. I also hooked up my BRS dual media reactor to run GFO. Thanks to someone on this site I now dont feel so bad running it after finding a link for some cheap GFO
The next step was flow. I wanted to have at least 60x movement in the tank and the 2 WP40's just didnt cut it. So I got a gyre and man does that thing move some water. So now I have my 60x turn over that I wanted.
After this I thought If I am going to have a great SPS tank how can I do it without a frag tank? So I did a lot on this and built a nice display stand for the frag tank as it sits right next to the display and is plumbed into it. The tank is a 24x24x12 rimless tank with a build in overflow and currently a AI hydra over it and a Jebao RW-4 I also got some nice acrylic frag racks to keep the tank looking nice.
i also bought a second 300w heater because I currently only have 1 and cant get my water temp over 77.8 so I hope this will help me bring it up to the 79* I want it at.
Then I got to thinking about the single most important thing for SPS LIGHT!!! I have done all I can to insure water quality is up to par but what good is that if I dont have the right lights and 3x AI hydra 26s are just not going to cut it. So I did lots of reading and research on this one. I wanted to maybe just upgrade to AI Hydra 52's instead and figured that would give me enough. however as I was researching SPS tanks all along I started to see a trend...Almost no one that had a really nice SPS tank was running LED I saw a few but they where smaller cubes with a lot Radions over them. I noticed everyone was running t5ho's using the ATI sun fixture or they ran MH...This was a tough pill for me to swallow because I have never wanted to run MH because I have always run LED and when you run LED and you have never ran MH you tend to see alot of people talking trash about MH and how they cost so much more per year then LED. Well some great people on this site helped me realize well its about 30$ more a month for me to run a 72" 3-250w MH / 4- 80w T5HO fixture then it is for me to run an led. That was with bulbs included and power. I also acounted for the fact that If I was going to upgrade my LEDs to what I would need in LED it would cost me roughly 3,000$ and after 5 years it would be about a wash between the two. So I have decided to buy my first MH/T5HO system...Hamilton Cebu Sun 72" with the M80 ballast for Radiums. I will end up running 2 ATI aquablue Specials and 2x ATI Coral Plus I think. I will probably make a post and see what kind of combinations people are using I havent used a t5ho in 4 years.
So here is my SPS system now.
220g Tank
30g Sump
30g Frag Tank
3x 250w MH
4x 80w T5HO's
Gyre
2x WP40's
Reef Keeper Lite
DC-250 Reef Octopus
Dual Media Reactor
180 lbs of Rock
NO SAND
2x 300w Heaters
4x Dosing pumps (Alk, Cal, I think I may use two for auto feeding not sure one to feed one to flush the water back out)
I will post some pictures of the progress so far. It is coming along and I have gotten a few SPS for the frag tank that are doing well. I am excited to start this new jeourny in reefing and hope to be a solid part of this sites SPS keepers community.
Here are a few pictures of the tank as it sands and my frag tank that I just finished.
My SPS so far haha its a drop in the bucket commpared to what will be in there.
Heres a terrible terrible picture of the GARF Purple Bonsi.
And heres a picture after starting to remove the sand bed.
