SPS Care?

[tangboy]

Alrighty,

I was a softie and LPS guy and had great success in growing things out (except for my crash this summer ) Now that I have set my system up with a Metal Halide I was going to try my hand at some SPS.

I have done some research on SPS care and found many different viewpoints.

I have seen people with lists of things to dose for and the kits required to test for the large list of chemical levels to acquire "perfection levels". Dosing Vodka, Kalk, Calcium, etc etc etc
I have seen the "less is more" chant about being hands-off care wise.
I have seen stuff about high turn over with powerhead supplements etc.

What has been your experience with taking care of and raising SPS? I want to know more about this before I jump into it!

 

[Steve W]

I have a 24 gallon nano with the following equipment

1 Korelia #2 Nano powerhead
1 useless Oceanic nano skimmer (all it ends up doing is oxygenating the water)
150 14000K MH with 2-14w T5 actinics
A sponge filter that is a part of the JBJ nano system and the JBJ circulation pump that is part of the system

I do 10-15% water changes weekly with a Reef Crystal salt mix and top off daily with ro/di water

I have a pocillapora, an encrusting montipora, and an acropora; all of which grow like crazy.

I also have 5 different Zoanthids, 2 palythoas, a duncan, an enormous branching frogspawn, 4 kinds of Ricordia (multiples of each), 3 varieties of mushrooms, 2 maroon clowns, a 6-line wrasse, a 4 inch long lawnmower blennie, a peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab, 8 astrea snails, 6 nerite snails, 25 Nassarius snails and a bunch of red macroalgae/kelp that came with the live rock.

Here's what I think is the key to the system. Lots of live rock! I have over 50 # of live rock in that 24 gallon aquarium along with a 3 inch deep sand bed. If you have good light, good circulation, change your water and have lots of live rock you can keep anything.

Steve W

 

[cee]

Stable water quality (=chemistry), moderate to high VARIABLE flow, moderate to high lighting, and proper skimming should about sum it up. Dosing comes later and isn't required, just nice for "tweaking" things. I'd actually have to disagree a bit with the previous poster as I don't like a lot of LR. It looks like I have a lot because most of it is supported with plastic crates but it is likely less than 1 lb./gallon. IMO it can harbor detritus, absorbs phosphates (only to leach them out later) and really isn't necessary to be successful. Also, sand is debatale; I only keep enough for aesthetics. Here's my partial list of occupants and they are all doing well:

Acros:
Blue-tipped beige tenuis
Red/blue tip prostrata (color not great at the moment)
Blue gomezi (S)
Icefire echinata
ORA pearlberry
ORA blue mille (S)
Palmer’s blue mille
Red mille
Blue tip yellow tenuis
Pink selago (snipersps)
Purple austera w/ blue polyps
Pink lemonade
Acro. Loisettae (snipersps) (LE Steve Elias loisettae?)
Oregon tort (S)
GARF bonsai
OG Rainbow Coral Red Stag (extremely fuzzy and hard to bring the red out w/o high lighting)
Pink PINK A. divaracata
Atlantis red cythera (not sure I’m ready to frag this one either)
Royal blue hoek (S)
Rainbow rosaria (S)
Tinctorius Aussie acro (S)
Aussie A. simplex (?)
ATL rambleri (S)
Hugo’s red stag
Aussie A. horrida purple w/ white polyps
Wild blue A. tort
Blue/green cluster acro (will turn baby blue under high light)
Acro. maryae (purple with blue polyps) (S)
Purple monster
Eddie’s purple monster (S)
Aussie blue tenuis
ORA German blue polyped acro (S)
20k lokani (S)
Acropora suharsoni (blue tipped variety)
Purple stag (formosa?) (S)
Red planet (S)
Purple unknown (S)
Hawkins echinata
Aussie Acro. Echinata
Purple Acropora willisae (different than previous one)
Turquoise A. stag thick-branched
Acropora tenella
Acropora rambleri


Montis:
Green w/ green polyps danae
Rainbow monti
Jedi mind trick
Sunset
Jose Casas’ reverse sunset (some orange polyps, some green, purple new growth edge)
Undata
Setosa
Purple haze
Poker star
RHCP
Forest fire
Orange cap
Mystic sunset except yellow base, two-tone (blue/brown) polyps

Others
ORA green stylophora
Green seriatopora
Pink stylophora
LE orange crush acan echinata

Chalices:
Tyree red WM
Tyree pink WM (S)
Miami hurricane
Pink-eyed white speckled blue chalice
Original ME
Oregon ME
Jayda’s
Juicy Coral’s raspberry monster (S)
JC Hybrid maroon WM (S)
Wet Dreams chalice (S)
Pink boobies (S)
Pinky Dinky (S)
Rainbow chalice (S)
Texas ME (S)

Scolys:
Red with purple and turquoise striping
Red with purple, turquoise, and orange striping
Green with red center and red and turquoise striping
Green with faint red stripes (BRIGHT)
Tye-dye scoly

Zoas:
2-faced (S)
Nuc greens (S)
Black hole suns
PHEs
Pink with green eye
AOG
Devil’s armor
Green and yellow with brown skirts
Orange skirts/purple ring/green body/orange eye (these have a name, just can’t recall it) (S)
Mohawks
Vivid green skirt/pink & red/pink center
Pink Solomon zoas (not palys)
Spidermans (S)
Tubb’s blues
Red zoas
LA lakers or Yellow Hornets
Banana republics

 

[Knox_Legend]

Cee's tank is quite impressive and I never would have known it wasn't stacked with live rock.

 

[tangboy]

I remember going to Cee's house about 2 years ago to buy a Hippo tang and a few zoas. It was SHWEET and just looked great.

I will have to start making a "wish list" of frags for some of you guys Let me know if you could toss together a "SPS starter kit" for me when you frag!