My new secret to sps keeping

psykobowler

psykobowler

New member
I bought 20 sps frags two months ago for my 150gallon display and haven't killed a single coral to date. Growth and coralline algae in abundance. I might have finally broken the code.

Kalkwasser - dosed daily. Adds calcium, alkalinity, increase and buffer ph, bind to phosphates. Brs - 50ml doser hooked to a Neptune ac jr for periodic dosing.

Reef crystal salt - change 25 gallons weekly (Fridays)

Don't just replace the tank water, vacuum the sand, sump to get rid of any mulm, debri, reduce nitrate

Dual skimmers - vertex in 180 hooked up to ozotech Poseidon set at #1 on for 30 minutes daily between 1 to 1:30am. RSo cone xp-3000 as the main skimmer. Cup emptied and cleaned daily.

Chaeto in the fuge section of the sump lit 20 hours per day starting prior to midnight.

Oyster feast, rotifers, brightwell amino acids fed/dosed every other day. Fish fed flakes daily

Carbon and gfo reactor (rowaphos) hooked up to return manifold, media replaced monthly.

Test ca, alk, mg on Saturday- the day after a water change. Add mg chloride/sulfate 5:3 ratio if mg less than 1100. Add cacl and/or sodium bicarbonate if needed.

Good t5 bulbs -ati blue plus
Good mh bulb -xm 20k

good batch of cuc

Vortech and tunze

Fan in sump and across the surface of the tank

Autotopoff
 
sounds to me like normal stable water conditions plus relle good diverse flow and stability :) Stuff only gets better with time i have come to realize this : )
 
i think everyone has something different they do that works for them. someone should start a thread where all the sps guys tell there equipment, lighting, and how they dose
 
I agree. There should be a thread that list time proven techniques in keeping sps and other reef in general. While there may be multiple methods out there that will work, I feel that we often have to assimilate tons of information just to connect the dots. Getting the proper equipment, chemicals and husbandry should not be a mystery.

If I had known that I could get a 50 pound bag of food grade Kalkwasser locally at Sierra chemical (west sacramento) for a little over $30 and it will do wonders for my tanks, 5 years ago I would have done so. It would have saved me some great deal of money on additives and livestock. I would have approached the addition of ca and alk using kalk first then buy a ca reactor or two part to adjust and meet the growing requirements. My 150 gallon tank has been running for over 3 years and it is not until I started using kalk that the coralline algae started growing. I changed salt to reef crystals too. Go figure.

I do not use an orp controller for ozone as well. I am happy to have approx 40 mg of ozone injected for 30 minutes at night when no one is near the tank and it makes a huge difference in clarity and dissolved organics. I have known plenty of people who advised me against ozone because they nuked their tanks with a bad probe. It is safer to run it a short period per day rather than to depend on a probe to turn the generator on and off. I also do not use an air dryer.

I was also told a long time ago against the danger of kalk so I never bothered to use it until recently. It is safest to dose kalk using a doser rather than a kalk reactor in case of an equipment malfunction. If I only prepare enough kalk to dose for 7 days and I adjust the concentration in the solution, there is no way to nuke the tank with kalk.

I wish I had known and tried these a long time ago. They would have made things a lot easier and less expensive for me.
 
Kalk is great, the biggest problem with kalk i had was I wanted to use it in my ATO, but my top off changes depending on the weather. If a snow storm comes in the air gets dry I can evap 2x-3x my normal top off rate which was causing my crazy alk swings. I've found over the years 2 part on dosers to be the easiest method for me. I curse the time I wasted fighting with calcium reactors.
 
Yup, I also went against using kalk with an ato. I dose approximately two quart of kalk solution disbursed throughout the day using a brs doser and a Neptune controller ac jr. My ato only does ro water. My kalk dosage is not dependent on weather.

I am in a process of saving up for an aquarium plants electronic regulator for the knop s iv that I purchased used. It is easier for me to tweak a ca reactor than two part dosing.
 
I've had good luck running a Kalk Reactor on a Controller. Off the top of my head, the dosing pump is on for 5 seconds every 5 minutes. It has been running like this without problems for about 8 months.
 
Glad to hear about the success in keeping sps corals. The honest truth is that once you rule out all of the brand marketing, it gets pretty simple. Now, keep acros alive and having them color up to max is two different things.

This is my backbone and has been for years. Kalk reactor + dosing pump + pH monitor. Don't skip out on flow either.
 
I use:
Oversized skimmer (3 X system volume)

Feed daily:
For the fish - Flake mix, frozen mysis/artemia
For the corals - Lobster eggs (alternate with cyclopeze),
Brightwell's Microvore, Zooplantos-S and Coral Snow daily (squirt of each after lights out)

Additives:
Seachem AA 10ml daily
Vodka (at 16ml) daily
MB7 3 drops daily

Lighting:
T5's 10 hours (just Aquamedic bulbs)

DSB/refuge (currently no macro algae just LR)
GFO (change monthly) and AC (cup per week)

I used to syphon my sand. Now I just move it around a bit every other day. It's very shallow.
Just enough to unclump the sand from carbon dosing.

oh and weekly 10% waterchange and monthly soak and clean pumps in vinegar.
 
Guys, I was so busy last night with the wifey and kids. I will try to snap pictures tonight and label it as before. Hopefully in another 2 months they will have good progress.

Glenn
 
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