want to get into sps corals

[MarcusGrizzy]

ive been reefin for a while bout 2 years i have lps corals, soft corls, and mushrooms. I want to get into sps what would be a good starter sps. i have a 125 gallon tank w/3 150w metal halide and 4 blue atinics w/what i believe is good water movement in the areas that i would be placing them

 

[dread240]

lighting is definitely only a fraction of the equation when it comes to sps from what I've seen... especially for species like acropora.

What are your levels like in your tank? many softies do better in dirty water which will ultimately be detrimental to most of your fragile sps species. Any media reactors? nitrate and phosphate levels?

As for your lighting... you could keep some sps in the upper 1/3rd of the tank I would say with those lights, and keep your lps and softies down below.

 

[Brian Chong]

My vote goes to my favorite, the "ford" of all acros, the cali tort. Hardy and red bugs dont bother it. I bought a solid blue green cali tort when i started out because it looked nice but it turned brown. didnt know anything about keeping sps and reefcentral. it survived all my newby mistakes including a grape caluerpa crash. Now it has translucent baby blue tips with purple and yellowish green.
Birdsnest would be a good one and montipora setosa is a good one too

 

[cdamiano]

Bridsnest and Montipora are usually easier than most SPS. Make sure all of your parameters are good and stable first.

 

[Reef Bass]

I'd suggest digitata (Montipora digitata) and monti caps (Montipora capricornus). Both hardy, fast growing and available in several colors.

Birdsnest grow easily but are often the first to go if problems arise, IME.

 

[wuster77]

monti easier than birdnest in my experience

 

[MarcusGrizzy]

thanks for the suggestions

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I'd suggest digitata (Montipora digitata) and monti caps (Montipora capricornus). Both hardy, fast growing and available in several colors.

Birdsnest grow easily but are often the first to go if problems arise, IME.

^^^+1

And in that order, a digi look great and very hardy, as well as monti caps compared to other SPS they seem to grow pretty fast.

 

[koralkrab125]

with my experience birdsnest has been the hardest for me to keep for some odd reason but my acro's, digi, caps, and torts all have good growth on them, i would deffenitly suggest getting your water parameters into the sps keeping range before or soon after getting peices. i also have a 125 and would suggest that once you get heavy into sps and need cal and alk supplement go with kalk reactor before a calcium reactor cuz i have a hard time keeping my ph in line