Tips for the new guy - what do you wish you'd known...?

[toothybugs]

My reef has been running now since February 2014 and is doing fairly well - numbers are good, pretty stable (though I recently saw an uptick my nutrient levels, probably from sucking out all my sand over the last few weeks), and the little bright blue stick I decided to try a month ago is sticking around, coloring up, and showing good PE. And my wife decided she wants me to have a bigger tank since she really likes the 105 SPS-dom that's at my LFS.

So I now have the space and request for a full, SPS-dom mixed reef (I refuse to give up my chalices, acans, and zoas). I know my equipment is up to par but am in the process of beefing up my flow a bit, since I would rather dial back from max than barely have enough even when wide open. It's probably good as is but still. And I have sticks on order, they arrive when the tank is fully set up - roughly a week and a half from now.

The question becomes: What do you know now that you wish you'd been told when you started SPS? I've never been serious about SPS so frankly I'm a little nervous. Everywhere says "stability, excellent lights, moderate to high flow" so what do you consider your secrets to success that you would pass on to the new guy?

 

[Myka]

I wish people would have told me:

...to buy fish that do a job (especially in small tanks where you have limited numbers of fish).

...to buy a doser and an ATO and never look back.

...to use good test kits or don't bother testing. :lol:

...don't tinker too much.

...make changes slowly.

...use a REALLY good skimmer.



And number ONE:

...pick a budget FIRST, and work backwards. If you only have $2000 to blow, don't buy a 90-gallon tank with SPS in mind. If you want a really nice SPS tank, then pick a smaller tank with better equipment. Quality over quantity matters big time for most SPS hobbyists. I've also had the best success with SPS in tanks that are almost exclusively SPS. If you want to keep your Chalices and Acans, I'd suggest you have two tanks. My current SPS tank has such high lighting and low nutrients that I really struggle to keep two LPS reasonably happy.

 

[icy1155]

Hmm... for me it would be:

1) You cant have to much flow. It can be positioned improperly, but there cant be to much IMO.

2) Water chemistry is most important. Then flow. Lighting is a distant third. I have grown SPS under PC, VHO, T5, MH and LEDs.

3) Leave room for growth. I know I have the habit of sticking frags here and there, but now I have the problem of having to cut out whole colonies because they are getting overgrown since I didn't plan ahead.

4) Only buy the corals you want! Don't just buy a piece of this and a piece of that because they are cheap. Look around and decide what you want for the tank before you buy any sps. I have a few that are taking up valuable real estate that are kind of blah but I cant make myself get rid of because they are nice colonies. That leaves me with a problem when I want to buy the frags that are more uncommon that I want and finally find.

5) This is probably the most important. DONT put those greyish button polyps in your tank. I have had xenia, GSP, blue cloves, the little brown cloves, everything and nothing else compares with the invasiveness of them. Those palythoa are the bane of my existence.

These ones:

 

[pstank1]

1. Place all encrusting monti's, zoa's, paly's and anything anything like them on their own rocks. It makes it much easier to keep them from overtaking your sps.

2. Inspect and Dip every piece of coral before you put it in your tank. No matter who it comes from, or what they tell about how clean their system is. I suggest going with the Bayer Advanced pesticide from your local big box store. There are many threads on here that go into the dosage, read up on them. If you have the money and space, setting up a qt for your corals to go along with dipping is even better.

 

[mcfa2403]

I agree with Mindy, most important thing I have learned is don't sacrifice quality. Buy good equipment to begin with, research it and don't buy a subpar piece of equipment with plans to upgrade (you will end up losing money on corals plus once you upgrade you lose the money you spent on the inferior product costing you significantly more in the long run).

You don't have to buy a Bubble King skimmer, but don't buy an undersized or cheap skimmer either.

 

[hk855]

It sounds like you want a mixed sps and lps/zoa tank, or a sps tank and a lps tank. For sps Myka and Icy have good suggestions, ATO, dosing system or calcium reactor, slow changes, quality skimmer.

For a mixed reef this needs a little tweeking. You want to keep the low nutrient, high light system needed for the SPS but you need to feed the tank enough to keep the LPS alive. Basically high nutrient input and high nutrient export, combined with high lighting and a deep tank. This gives you the high light and low nutrients needed for the SPS and low light at the bottom and food input needed for LPS. For the tank itself I would go with equal width and height, length is up to you. And for LPS and SPS the taller and wider the better because it will give you a larger difference of high light up high and low light down low, but if its a very tall tank vs width you shade the bottom and less grows at the bottom. For lighting I would recomend MH and T5 or just T5 given you are somewhat of a beginer. Or T5 and LED. LEDs work but have a learning curve as far as light intensity and coral color quality. Basicaly T5 or MH is more set it and forget it while LED can take a lot of tweaking to get right, and then colors are still sub par for the most part.

The biggest thing for a mixed reef is water quality. You want to maximize your food inputs while maintaining near zero PO4 and NO3. This means a quality oversized skimmer and a form of nutrient export such as refugium, algae scrubber, carbon dosing, biopellets or Zeovit. All of these work but a large refugium or algae scrubber is the easiest to self regulate. Basically if you give the algae enough light and room to grow they will keep nutrients low but are less likely to strip the tank clean like carbon dosing or zeovit can do.

For water flow I would go with more low flow powerheads than fewer high flow power heads. More points of flow results in lower flow velocity directly infront of the powerheads and fewer dead spots but adds to eye sores and take up more tank space. So look for a balance of 3-6 powerheads for most mid sized tanks, and ~50x tank turnover minimum.

The main thing I wish I knew 5 years ago was stay away from "new technology". All the additives on the market are more or less BS, all you need is Alk Ca and Mg, carbon, skimmer, macro algae and water changes. Yes some of these additives can help out but many are only beneficial to ULNS fish devoid tanks that need nutrients or highly fed tanks with inadequate skimmers and no nutrient export like macro algae. This also applies to lighting, LEDs are like cellphones, they are hightech and cool when you buy them but in two years are obsolete and broken, with the suppliers trying to sell you the new model with the same promises of the old model, while they can do a lot of cool tricks they have issues too. Low tech T5 and MH are simple and easy for the most part.

 

[toothybugs]

This stuff is great. Anybody else want to throw anything in to this? I'm tempted to print these out for safe keeping... if there is one thing I have learned, dredging the collective wisdom of an experienced group always pays surprising dividends.

 

[Big E]

Mixed reefs are tougher to get all corals to thrive. Some people are able to do it but some times there are trade-offs. It's easier with larger tanks.

The biggest conundrum you're going to run into is keeping chalices happy when the acros need higher par levels. You end of having to shove chalices into shaded areas and then you can't appreciate their vivid coloration as much.

Again, a 30" deep tank can handle this easier than a 24" tank and a shallower tank it becomes even more challenging.

Chalices look outstanding at 100 or lower par.

Acros need at least 200 & that's mainly the smooth skin deep water types.

Most will need 300-400 par.

 

[icy1155]

Yeah, I forgot about supplements. I don't buy ANY supplements from any vendors. A lot of them are snake oil, and the liquid supplements for Calcium, Alk and Mag are a terrible value as well since you are paying more for the water.

In my 180g sps tank, I dose calcium and alk. Mag is taken care of by water changes. For alk, I buy a Cosco/Sams Club/BJ's sized container of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda. That is baked in the oven to turn it into soda ash. For calcium, I bought a 50lb bag of dowflake (its sold as a driveway melt) two years ago I am still using up. It comes out to over a tablespoon of each dry supplement every day, and if I was using aquarium brands I would be broke in no time.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Well things I would do differently if and when i do another reef tank. Do a closed loop system for flow plus a good wave maker power head like tunze or vortec. Build a large sump with a large fuge and enough room for all the equipment. Dual or coast to coast over flow. Get a good high quality skimmer that is the next size larger than is rated for your tank size, dont skimp on this one even if you have to save up. The skimmer is the heart and soul of your reef tank. Get a good controller and use it run the tank, monitor water parameters and keep it stable.