New to SPS and love it.

[jeffreyt944]

So I recently picked up some sps from a friend (see attached) who is getting out of reefing for a little and I am new to sps. I want to know what to do for proper care and growth. Water conditions ect. Please help me out with pointers, feeding, water conditions.

I have a 50 gallon that is 18" deep, 30" wide. With a 250w MH that is mounted 8" above the water. PH is regularly at 7.9, 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrate, 0 Nitrite. I cant remember what my Salinity is at but its normal if that tells you anything. I dont mean to sound uninformed but I am. I am a part time hobbiest but I love it. Anyways, I feed my Green star polyps and zoas this stuff called reefroids and they seem to love it. I dunno if thats good enough for sps or if I need to raise PH for them to really take off or what. Looking for some pointers so I dont lose anything. Thanks yall.





I have some sps that looks like this. Thanks

 

[southstar066]

I would recommend getting the following to help if not already had
refroctometer- salinity needs to be constent with sps
ATO- helps maintain water level and salinity
ALK, CAL, MAG Test kits
Good skimmer.
Start with a few pieces and see how they do. Maintain you alk and calcium as you add pieces. Keep good water quality, keep NO3 and P04 down. Its not very hard once you get the hang of it. The hard part is keeping everything constent. But once you buy the equipment to help with that you should be fine. I have been keeping sps for about 3 years now, and just bought an ATO about a week ago, and Im about to buy a Phosphate reactor to help keep p04 down.

 

[andyt2989]

So I recently picked up some sps from a friend (see attached) who is getting out of reefing for a little and I am new to sps. I want to know what to do for proper care and growth. Water conditions ect. Please help me out with pointers, feeding, water conditions.

I have a 50 gallon that is 18" deep, 30" wide. With a 250w MH that is mounted 8" above the water. PH is regularly at 7.9, 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrate, 0 Nitrite. I cant remember what my Salinity is at but its normal if that tells you anything. I dont mean to sound uninformed but I am. I am a part time hobbiest but I love it. Anyways, I feed my Green star polyps and zoas this stuff called reefroids and they seem to love it. I dunno if thats good enough for sps or if I need to raise PH for them to really take off or what. Looking for some pointers so I dont lose anything. Thanks yall.

Alkalinity and calcium are very important if you are going to keep SPS. From my limited personal experience if you are not monitoring and supplementing on a regular basis everything will be great until the corals deplete the tanks available alkalinity - then things go pear shaped very quickly. Using concentrated calcium hydroxide solution as top off water is an easy way to maintain both - if your tanks has a fairly low calcium requirement. It is also worthwhile to check your magnesium, since you will not be able to keep enough calcium in solution if your magnesium is low.

Your pH is a bit low, but not necessarily a problem. Calcium hydroxide solution would raise that. Also you should check your phosphorous - its probably Ok if your nitrates are zero, but its good to be sure.

Andy