Hi! At last somebody else here with sun corals collection in nano
Mine 6g (+7g sump for large skimmer, was 2g):
IMHO, all depends on how are you planning feeding and filtration.
I see 3 1/2 potential problems
:
1. Filtration.
Amount of food, given for several full sized colonies - not few heads frags - will be at least equivalent of 4 mysis cubes daily.
Unless make full water change after each feeding (by aged water from another tank, and this will be a lot of work), filtration should be able to clean water after that, and reasonably fast, before ammonia spike. Particulates could be removed by fine micron sock, removed after very few hours, but dissolved organics (including oils and lipids) still will be present. Efficient skimmer is the only way I could think of, or skimmer + ozone + a lot of frequently changed carbon. I don't know, if you are planning to take this route.
2. Food and feeding.
For a large amount of sun corals feeding by tweezers is difficult, requiring more time than ordinary human can have. Especially difficult, if there is no room for a hand, holding tweezers.
Squirting food onto polyps will lead to the loss of some food, better remove it, especially between polyps (consider it dental hygiene for corals
).
- I had read about experiment with leaving it to the bristle worms, but have no information how it ended. Doesn't work for me, though.
- This leaves either manual removing (quite a hassle in a long run), or high flow, lifting all of this and moving it to filtration. Rock structure should be open enough to prevent accumulation of the uneaten food under the rock.
Food:
- The easiest way is whole food: mysis, plankton.
Assuming that skimmer works efficiently, this will leave phosphates, that rise fast with such amount of feeding. Options, that I know, are: large amounts of GFO in reactor, liquid phosphate remover and organic carbon dosing. Marcoalgae was covered in no time by oily film and became itself the source of pollution, IMHE.
Downside: expensive in a long run.
- Cheaper, but more polluting, is homemade coral food recipe (chopped raw seafood). Same problems, plus readjustment of skimmer, which will overflow right after feeding.
3. Aiptasia.
I don't know, how you were successful in fighting it (I wasn't), but usual solution - large aiptasia eating fish - is not possible in nano. I tried aiptasia eating aeolid nidibranchs, they disappeared in the tank, and what hatched from their eggs - too. In several tanks.
1/2:
Bristle worms. As long as they are good guys for you, it's OK, but after that...
Some of the encrusting sponges should be removed, and dealing with babies of the coral, that couldn't be neutered, and nobody wants to buy them, and giving them away for a mass of different people will make your home as open to a public, as any animal shelter is - not every family will approve such lack of privacy.
But these are the minor problems, comparing to filtration and feeding.
Post your information, please.
May be I will be able to pick up a good idea for improving my tank. So far I'm planning to take a route of leaving a couple of frags of every kind, return main mass to LFS, and do feeding by tweezers.
