keys to keeping sps?

K

kris6983

New member
I was just wondering what are the most important keys to keeping sps. Just to let you know I have 2x 400w mh for lights and do very regular water changes of about 10g on a 90g weekly and keep my params very consistant. oh I only use ro\di h2o.
I have a bunch of flow a mag 18 on the return pump and a tunze 6060. ca 425 nitrates less than .05 ph 8.3 phos 0 dkh 11. any help would be helpful. thanks
 
Stable, good water quality/parameters.

Patience, as growing a monster SPS reef - looking grown in and stunning - is not something you'll have in the next year, maybe more. Knowing what I do now, it might take me less time - but if I started all over it would be a good while before it looked like much. That's ok ... given the above, it will :)

For `general advice' there's these great threads:
Let's talk about water quality in an SPS tank.

Lets talk about lighting an SPS tank

Let's talk about water movement in an SPS tank

IMO, start with easier, aquacultured stonies [like Montipora] ... then add aquacultured other pieces ... eventually to add wild colonies if desired - but I'd get the hardy cultured ones down pat first.

Personally, I'd drop the Alk to more in the 8-9 dKh range ... some folks believe they have more problems when Alk is elevated well above NSW [which is 7 dKh]. I wouldn't let Alk drop below 7 [it's not fatal] ... but found poorer results when that was low.

Water flow ... you will likely want to upgrade as your corals grow. Now that my frags are turning into colonies, I've felt like upgrading flow had quite a good benefit - where before they were very grown out it was likely mostly overkill.

Ask questions, search this topic [heck, just page back a dozen pages, you'll find similar threads ... best of all, with different opinions].

There's a number of people doing somewhat different things - all achieving very nice results. Just because I post a lot doesn't mean I have the `one right way' ... nor likely does anyone else IMO. We all likely have something to teach you, while we all disagree :D

Perhaps find a local reef club, or a local stony coral keeper to get to know, check their tanks, maybe get some frags ... to learn from. Personally I found a couple folks who seemed to have good, long-term results ... and followed their husbandry and advice as best I could.

Every tank is different, there's people using just about every substrate, a lot of methods, different light amounts/types, etc. to each get lovely remarkable results. IMO, what I see in all of them is good water quality, and devoted husbandry.

That's what I end up focusing most on. But that's just my opinion, and I'd always encourage you to get a number of takes on it, as many as possible, really.
 
Mark is spot on....as usual.

Good flow
Large skimmer and a few fish(IMO fish waste, both liquid and solid is good food for sps but a big skimmer is needed to keep it at very low levels and remove it before it degrades further)
Quality bulbs
Stable params

That's mainly what I use anyway:)

Chris
 
I think you'll find that keeping most "sps" corals is really a matter of having a stable, healthy tank and isn't any different from what it take to have any other kinds of corals. I'd also acknowledge and work with the knowledge that these corals are not all the same and that they live in a variety of environments and therefore have different needs. You'll find that something like Montipora digitata is totally different from digitate Acropora (e.g. A. humilis). You'll find that these two are quite different still from say Pachyseris spp. or Hydnophora spp.

I think you've got a great tank to keep a lot of shallow water corals, but I'd approach them all individually because, well, they are all individuals (don't get caught up on figuring out exact species though as that's futile--genus and growth form is usually plenty specific). That leads to the greatest success IME.

Other than that, what more could I add to what Mark said :thumbsup:

Best,

Chris
 
My approach has been this:

Find the nicest SPS tank in the area. Try to copy what theyre doing. Maintain parameters the same, etc.
 
Can I add ... don't get hung up on the latest/greatest thing for corals/sps/etc.

I've only been posting here a few years - but the sheer # of products marketed to solve our problems, grow miracle corals is astounding.
[PO4 removers, new greatest light bulb, new great suppliment, new great food, new filter, new greatest skimmer, new greatest substrate/method ... it never ends, it seems]

Realize that there's a lot of successful older tanks that never used these [funny that they could get good results ;)] ... IMO let others be the learning curve for you.

It just seems for every 3 `awesome products' that come out ... maybe 1 of 3 is still commonly liked a year or so later - or is considered non-problematic. New stuff that is considered useful after time does come out every year - but IMO if you follow trends you'll burn a lot of money - and not give your Acropora the stability that they thrive best in IME.

Just my take, I'm well aware others would disagree and I'm fine with that.
But so often it's easy to get caught up in trends ... to realize that the stability that we're going for isn't well suited to trend-following IMO.
 
Again, I strongly agree with Mark. As some food for thought: Stuber was the first casual aquarist to keep an Acropora alive and grow it and he did that in the early 80's. None of the fancy technology we enjoy today existed then--just very, very basic equipment. Eng was the first to encourage the use of natural materials to build reef tanks (live rock) and the first really successful amatear aquarist. He did this in the 60's, if I recall. Another gentleman who's name I forget maintained, spawned and settled corals over 100 years ago. No technology was available then at all. How he did that (I feel like such a heel for forgetting his name) when we find it increadibly difficult today with our technology is mind boggling. It's a bit like getting to the moon before rockets were invented.

Chris
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6808407#post6808407 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MCsaxmaster
Another gentleman who's name I forget maintained, spawned and settled corals over 100 years ago. No technology was available then at all.
Click to expand...
Thomas Wayland Vaughn.

Don't worry Chris, you can run circles around the rest of us when it gets to coral cell biology - please, continue to leave the rest of us easy ones ;)

From Rob Toonen
Thomas Wayland Vaughan was the first person for whom I could locate accounts of rearing corals from planula larvae (he used these techniques during his 1908-1915 study which was published in 1916). During Vaughan's study of the corals of the Tortugas, he succeeded in spawning and raising larvae from 5 species of coral (Astrangia solitaria, Favia fragum, Agaricia purpurea, Porites clavaria, and Porites asteroides (Vaughan 1910, 1911, 1919). He managed to keep several colonies of Favia fragum and Porites asteroides alive from larvae through settlement and five years of subsequent growth (some reached nearly 10 cm in diameter during that time), which was a remarkable accomplishment for the time
Click to expand...
 
thank you everyone for your responces. we do have a person close to me w\ an awsome sps tank chad aka reefscience I will stop soon to get some corals from them and get some tips on what he has done
 
I also couldn't agree more about not chasing fads. I will typically give new products about a year to play out before I even think about trying them. It seems like lots of the latest greatest things seem to inevitably cause problems within a few months if they are going to.
Chris
 
Stability and lots of water changes. Attempt to keep water as nutrient free while maintaining stability. If all else fails, throw money at the problem.
 
the eco-aqualizer is the absolutely best product ever created for a sps reef tank!!! i swear by them.... they are so much better than those other "fad" products that aren't worth a crap.... YOU NEED TO GET ONE!!!!!!








......ROFLMAO....just kidding folks! I'll go with stable water, quality flow and lighting, and finally Calc, Alk, and Mag......

and no, i have never bought an eco-aquamagnetpieceofcrap
 
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