Keeping sps in a 12g

[twiggyb]

So originally this nano was supposed to be a mantis tank, however finding the right mantis wasn't as easy as I thought. One day at the lfs I came across a harlequin filefish and decided to give it a try since he was eating roe. I put a couple of frags in there to keep him eating while I was away at work, but now I think I wanna try to make the tank an sps tank. I originally had the stock lights on there, but I am temporarily using the viper k-2 150w light over it now. My question is about the flow in the tank. It has the stock return pump and I put a koralia nano in it as well. Should I put more flow in the tank? Right now all I have right now is a slimer frag and a millepora frag that don't come out much because of the fileish. My plan is having a fully stock amount of acro so he has enough to eat, but all the polyps won't stay hidden all day. He's eating mysis well but will always pick at the frags as soon as he wakes up. Any help on how to maintain it in such a small tank? Right now I've been changing water about every other day as I'm dumping tons of food in the tank to make sure the filefish is eating, but he's been eating better so I don't have to dump as much. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[twiggyb]

bump, any help or advice out there?

 

[saltygeek]

When acros get nipped they will keep polyps retracted until dark. IMO I dont think it will work well.

 

[twiggyb]

Even if it is heavily populated? Do they need their polyps for photosynthesis or can they still do that without them out? I can feed the tank at night with oysterfeast when the filefish is sleeping

 

[saltygeek]

In a 12 gallon, I think the filefish would make his rounds pretty quickly. In the wild, they usually only have their polyps out at night. I just think it would be stressful to the acros being constantly nipped at. I've seen larger tanks with nippers and they do fine but not sure about a nano.

 

[twiggyb]

Thanks. I have a 65g I was going to put him in when he's eating well enough to survive without the tremendous food I'm dumping in right now. Maybe this will give me time to colonize my DT with acros

 

[velvetelvis]

The polyps *are* the corals themselves--that is, the animals that do the feeding. The stony part is just their skeleton.

Not to be a downer, but I don't think you'll be able to grow enough corals to feed your filefish. They just don't grow that fast, particularly acros. Dumping in tons of food will more likely degrade your water quality (thus making it harder to keep your SPS healthy) than cause them to grow faster, particularly if they're being denuded of polyps (AKA slowly eaten to death) every day. This is an animal that probably roams a hundred yards or more each day to find enough to eat...an area as small as a 65, no matter how carefully maintained, just wouldn't have enough corals to keep up with his appetite.

 

[twiggyb]

Well I'd like to try anyway. He's eating mysis and brine, but I'd like to keep his natural diet as well. I do water changes almost every other day because of the food I put in there for the fish to eat.

 

[velvetelvis]

I'd post about this in the Reef Fishes forum, too. Maybe someone else has experimented with this as well and can offer you some tips and advice.