Got my Beginner SPS 4 Pack

[pdiehm]

Here's what they sent me:

1 - Canary Porites - mid to high
1 Orange Guttatus Birdsnest - High placement
1 Butternut Stylophora - mid to high
1 Sunburst Pavona - Bottom to middle

Plan is to dip them with Revive for 15 minutes, and put on the sandbed of my display.

I listed where Live Aquaria says to place them, but they are using the metal halide lighting...

For my tank, I have a Photon 48 (Channel 1 40%, Channel 2 25%) sitting about 12" over the surface of the water. To the top of the sand bed is about 34-36". Logan at ReefBreeders says to increase the lighting 5-10% each week and stop at approx 60-70% max intensity.

So for a week, all 4 will be on the sandbed. Next friday, I'll move them up about 6". The Sunburst will stay in this position. The other 3 will get moved to their final spot a week later.

Good plan? Bad plan? Ideas? Advice?

 

[swk]

Be very careful with the birdsnest type species and LEDs. They are easily stressed by lighting that is too intense. I use ati t5 fixtures for my sps and my birdsnests, when I keep them, are always best on the sandbed. I have given lots of frags to buddies with led lit tanks and they always struggle for a bit during the transition.

Welcome to the sps club! They are wonderfully addicting. As a matter of fact - I started with my goal being a lovely mixed reef...now all I keep is sps. And to take it further, 98% of my coral are Acropora with the other 2% being what I consider to be "rare" montipora. Everything else is gone and if I could get all the damn digitata out of my tank....I would! Anyone have some monti eating nudis they wanna give me lol!

 

[lynchmob3000]

Be very careful with the birdsnest type species and LEDs. They are easily stressed by lighting that is too intense. I use ati t5 fixtures for my sps and my birdsnests, when I keep them, are always best on the sandbed. I have given lots of frags to buddies with led lit tanks and they always struggle for a bit during the transition.

Welcome to the sps club! They are wonderfully addicting. As a matter of fact - I started with my goal being a lovely mixed reef...now all I keep is sps. And to take it further, 98% of my coral are Acropora with the other 2% being what I consider to be "rare" montipora. Everything else is gone and if I could get all the damn digitata out of my tank....I would! Anyone have some monti eating nudis they wanna give me lol!

Lol now that's passion!

 

[pdiehm]

Doesn't look like I will be a long member of the SPS club.

The birdsnest is dead. The digitata is dead. The butternut Stylophora is turning white.

Very close to saying screw corals and going fish only or a zoanthid only tank as it appears that is the only coral I can keep without it dying.

 

[NaturalReef]

Hang in there pdi....how mature is your tank....the rock looks ultra clean...I'll repeat this from another thread. Good lighting, good flow, good parameters with nutrients are what will keep SPS thriving. Where are your tank parameters?

 

[pdiehm]

Parameters in the 120 (the picture is after I moved to my BioCube, which has better parameters IMO).

The 120 is about 9 months old, and the cube is coming up on a year

Temp: 78
Salinity: 34
pH: 8.27
Alk: 8.1
NO3: 0
PO4: 0
Calcium: 500+
Magnesium: 1600+

Now caveat, I know the PO4 and NO3 are false. I know this because I have algae growing like mad in my sump. Was given some prodibio to dose, as I was told, good way to lower the nutrients in the tank. Dosed on Wednesday.

For lighting, I have a photon 48, running at about 60% of what I normally run it at. I have a maxspect Gyre 150 at 40% quick short pulses.

If I had to estimate my NO3, probably in the 5-7 range, and the PO4 in the 0.05 range. High, but not high enough to show on tests.

Everything was doing great until about day 5, and the birdsnest stopped extending. It's completely white and I figure dead. I now have a white blotch on my Stylophora and just read it could be RTN, and I may want to cut it off the plug and reattach to a new plug, and get that bottom portion out of my tank

 

[frog.pauley]

That looks like Marco again! Second thread I have seen this week. Those rocks look just like mine. I tried SPS at 1 year...failed. Alk swings and me chasing numbers attributed to the RTN I think. My tank is now three years old. Just started to try SPS again. My tank is rock solid now. It took 2 years for it stable out and coralline to start chowing up on the rocks. No hair algae, no anything on the rocks for 2 years. LPS and S.Gigantea have done well, SPS absolutely not! Now mine all look good after their first week. Alk is rock steady at 8.4.
Hang in there, enjoy your tank, and if that is marco rocks, I would love to see updates on how your tank is doin.

 

[NaturalReef]

I will say this....prodibio is good stuff, maybe too good if you have other nutrient exports. When I dose prodibio and lax on my feeding, no3 goes zero and my SPS start to fade on color.

 

[pdiehm]

This tank has Marco rocks. I took the corals out of the 120 because the cube, believe it or not is more stable.

I dosed 3 vials of bioptim, bio digest, reef booster, iodine, strontium and vitamins. Followed the instructions. Skimmer has stopped overflowing for now 48 hours.

Think I should just do the bio digest and bioptim for the time being

 

[pdiehm]

That looks like Marco again! Second thread I have seen this week. Those rocks look just like mine. I tried SPS at 1 year...failed. Alk swings and me chasing numbers attributed to the RTN I think. My tank is now three years old. Just started to try SPS again. My tank is rock solid now. It took 2 years for it stable out and coralline to start chowing up on the rocks. No hair algae, no anything on the rocks for 2 years. LPS and S.Gigantea have done well, SPS absolutely not! Now mine all look good after their first week. Alk is rock steady at 8.4.
Hang in there, enjoy your tank, and if that is marco rocks, I would love to see updates on how your tank is doin.

Got distracted. I have coralline, it's just a maroon in color. I also have purple on the back wall.

 

[NaturalReef]

I'll say it again....prodibio and bioptim together will wipe nutrients fast. You need to feed heavier if you are running a low nutrient system. I had a hard time with any measurable no3 while using it.

 

[pdiehm]

i just started, the corals are removed for the time being.

the next dosing will be just the biodigest and bioptim. just looked at the skimmer, and we're almost 72 hours since dosing, and still overflowing wildly. Thinking the 3 vials of reefbooster was too much, even though they said to dose 3 vials.

 

[pdiehm]

Update:

The Stylophora definitely showing signs of STN. It's slowly getting worse.

The birdsnest is actually starting to regain its color. It's slow, but you can start to see polyps and such.