newbie starting out with sps

[krazekajin]

I need some general advice on my tank and my foray into SPS. I have a 29g tank with a fluval 304, one HOB filter, aqua C remoray with maxijet 100, two powerheads. I believe that my water flow is medium heavy to heavy. All corals show movment. The lighting is 1 175w MH (directly over my SPS) and two 65w Blue acintics.

Here is the story. The tanks has been up for a little over a year. It contains some leathers, mushrooms, one hammer (doing awesome), one frogspawn (doing wonderful), GSP, barirum, zoos, button polyps, blushing coral.

Recently within the last month I bought four frags of SPSs.

1 - Acropora tenuis
1 - Montipora digitata
1 - Acropora millepora
1 - thin branched pink birdsnest

I aclimated them and placed them in my tank. All looked great. Then my clown found the millepora and the birdsnest and picked them up and threw them. They have since bleached out adn I believe died.

The frag of Acropora tenuis is about three inches high with about fifteen 1/4 - 1/2 branches. I have it in my 29g reef directly under a 175w MH (about 12 inches under). I have had it for about three weeks and it's color is beautiful.

The frag of Montipora digitata has thousands of polpys extending.

I have never seen any polyps on the acropora like I do on the digitata. Is this normal. I just read somewhere that acroporas extend at night? Anyway, The color is awesome. They have good flow and light. my levels seem normal

levels as of a couple of days ago.
SG - 1.26
PH - 8.1 - 8.2 (Is this low?)
Alk - 4.5 meq/L (with a seatest kit)
Cacium - my test reads 800ppm ( I know this is wrong. Can someone tell me what is the best and easiest test for calcium)
Temp is 79
am - O
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - below 10

 

[Znut Reefer]

Salifert is the best for ALK, Ca, and Mag. Don't get the P04, it' not any good for Phos testing IMO and many others. I got the Hach 19 PO4 test kit. Pricey but works great.

 

[twon8]

if you have frogspawns and hammers that are doing well you don't have medium to heavy water movement, at least with regard to sps. they like to be blasted imo. what type of powerheads do you have?

are you runnig carbon in the fluval?

 

[JamesJR]

Your setup sounds similar to my old 30 gallon reef tank, which I took down about 3 years ago. I second Znut reefers opinion. Alkalinity, Ca, phosphate and pH are all things you should test frequently for. They have to be in their correct levels or your corals won't thrive. The calcium could reach that high, but it would supersaturated and you would probably have precipitation before too long.

With regard to the current these corals need it. I would not exactly "blast" them with it. I would probably advocate a high amount of inderect or random current. Having a strong current that is directly aimed for the coral can eventually blow the tissue right off the skeleton. As far as the polyps being extended on your acropora, it is hard to say because I have had many acroporas that never showed any polyp extension during the day and they did well. I have also seen acroporas extend their polyps beautifully, even as the colony is RTN. With most sps corals, at least for me, growth is the most important and obvious sighn of health.

One last thing I will tell you is that from my own experience as a side note, while I have mixed sps with leather corals and button polyps and been able to maintain both at the same time, I don't think this is the best way to go. I just had a very difficult time getting the kind of growth that I wanted out of my sps in my 30 gallon tank. I had to do a lot more maintenance to keep things the looking the way I wanted.

 

[krazekajin]

My frogspawn and hammer are placed behind rocks and generally out of the high flow areas.

my powerheads are aquatic gardens 600s. These are el cheapo powerheads, but they move water. i just recieved my mod kit to convert my maxijet 1200 to a tunze type powerhead.

I use the aquarium systems test kits by instant ocean. My calcium test is so hard to understand and I know that my calcium is not at 800ppm. If it was it would look like snow.

So, I am looking for a better test kit. I think someone reccommended Seatest or Salifert. I am open to all ideas.


I have a 50g that is almost ready to start cycling. I just need to stain my stand. It will be a 50g with a 55g sump and refugium.

 

[dippin61]

if you plan on putting the 1200 modded in your 29g... your in for a suprise, thats gonna be too much flow for that small of a tank. your softies are gonna get real mad when all that flow starts pouring down on them.

 

[krazekajin]

maxijet in 29g

maxijet in 29g

I am going to try it and see what happens. It is really for my 55g that I will be getting going as soon as I stain my stand next week.

I just had an oppurtunity to buy some very resonable sps frags. but Something in my tank or set up is just not right. I realize that SPS are the hardest corals to keep, so I am trying to figure out what is going on. I just realized today that my montopora which had been doing so good and really polpyed out has a white spot on it. I hope I don't lose it. I am trying to buy a better calcium test kit and try to really figure out my levels.

I just want to figure these out.