Getting an SPS coral

[grant778]

So my tank is about 1 year old now and I have some mushrooms in it and I would like to keep it soft coral dominated, but I would like to get one centerpiece branching sps coral. The tank is 29 gallons, has the reefbreeders value LED fixture over it, and I do a 5 gallon water change with reef crystals every other week. The tank is sumpless as well (the location wouldn't allow for one). I'm curious as to if I would be able to keep a sps coral in my tank, and if so, what type of calcium and alkalinity supplementation should I do?

 

[madadi]

i had a 29 gallon before like your set up. I used kalk, no sump and a 175w MH over it. i wasnt ever able to keep sps but lps and softies rocked. I'm sure others had better results.

 

[grant778]

Did you add the kalk directly to the tank?

 

[Blueline12]

I would not supplement kalkwasser in that small of a tank. The alk could fluctuate too much and cause havoc.

You may not need to supplement any calcium or alk with one hard coral unless it gets really big. Once you have your SPS coral you will need to test alk and calcium regularly to see if it is getting used up too fast because of your coral demand. If not and they are stable,
no need to supplement. If they are going down even with regular water changes I would dose two part ESV Bionic calcium and alk.

Hope that helps.

 

[acanlover]

Sps is hard but not as hard as some people make it sound. Like others have posted make sure all levels are stable and supplements are in order and then buy a cheap easy to care for sps such as a monti. You will never know unless you try one out.

 

[grant778]

How do people normally do two part dosing because there is no place for me to put an automatic two part dosing system. I will probably add the sps frag in a week or two since it will take a while before it starts using up a lot of nutrients, but I would like to get everything planned out for if that day comes.

 

[Blueline12]

How do people normally do two part dosing because there is no place for me to put an automatic two part dosing system. I will probably add the sps frag in a week or two since it will take a while before it starts using up a lot of nutrients, but I would like to get everything planned out for if that day comes.

Without a doser doing 2 part would be tough as it should be dosed incrementally throughout the day. You probably will never need it.

Just keep doing weekly water changes and you should be fine.

 

[grant778]

Ok. Well I will go up to water changes every week again once I get the sps coral. I had dropped down to every other week since I was just keeping mushrooms and I felt every week was a little uneccessary for those corals.

 

[Blueline12]

Ok. Well I will go up to water changes every week again once I get the sps coral. I had dropped down to every other week since I was just keeping mushrooms and I felt every week was a little uneccessary for those corals.

Weekly is best for SPS imo. Helps keep parameters stable.