SPS for PC/NO???

[bambam31]

Hey Antoine! I have a question in light of (HA!) your article this month. I have a 75g slowly building into a reef and a 10g fuge. Over this I have 130 PC 10K ; 130 actinic PC ; 40 NO 18K ; and 40 NO actinic. I know from your invaluable work on WWM (thank God for you and the crew!) that the actinic is mostly aestetic. Is there any SPS that would fair well near the top in this setup? Thanks for all you do!

 

[Anthony Calfo]

Cheers, my friend

thanks for your kind words too

Yes, indeed... your lighting here is moderate/modest and the actinics are more of aesthetic value than anything.

That said... there are many "sps" corals you can keep under these lights. More than half of what you are likely to find, in fact. Indeed some will give you trouble with color changes. And water flow will need to be spot on (usually stronger) to assist or compensate for improved coral growth. And mosyt all species that you keep will need to be placed within the top 12" or so of water.

Not surprisingly to you, perhaps, is my recommendation for you to start with Montipora species. You may also try some Acros... focus on the darker colored specimens... particularly earth tones (tan, brown) and green which often are lower light adapted/tolerant.

For inspiration, one of my most successful sps tanks in nearly 15 years was a 50 gall breeder tank that had 6 NO fluorescents on it. The tank was only 18" deep and was packed with growing and colorful sps corals. My opinion on its success hinged o the fact that I had superb water clarity and quality from large weekly water changes plus massive water flow (over 20X).

best of luck!

Anthony

 

[bambam31]

Thanks Anthony! I may carefully experiment with one. Water quality may end up being more of an issue than anticipated. I am doing between a 10% and 15% water change every five days because I let my wife pick out 1 coral at the LFS without doing proper research first.... It's a Tubastrea with about 30 polyps that I'm target feeding daily. It's absolutely beautiful, but I read some info from you suggesting it should be in a species only tank because of the amount of nutrients from heavy feeding. No points of water quality are testing problematic at this point (still no register of Nitrate (Red Sea)) I just don't know what long term problems this might breed. I have a light fish load and a 6" DSB w/ 88lbs live rock so hopefully I can stay on top of water quality. Thanks Again! Brad

 

[Anthony Calfo]

for optimal health, I'd have to agree that Tubstrea and like feeding azooxanthellate species are much better in small species tanks where their prey and feeding opportunities can be concentrated. The very best displays of these corals I've ever seen (like the nifty little Tubastrea tank at Atlantis in Riverhead, Long Island NY) are set up this way. Do consider feeding Cyclop-eeze too... a couple public aquaria displays with sun corals Ive seen have been feeding this heavily wth marvelous results.

kindly,

Anthony