When Can I Add SPS?

[Kiel'thalin]

My tank has been setup for 3 months now and interested in adding my 1st frag of coral. I eventually want a SPS dominated tank. Right now I have a little problem with hair algae that thankfully has receded quite nicely since I removed 5 fish to make overstocked tank more of a lightly stock tank I ran phosphate remover, bought a new skimmer, and water params never looked so good. No I am sitting with the following eq:
46 Gallon Bow-Front Tank
Deltec MCE600 Skimmer (replaced my worthless CPR Bakpak)
Aqua-Medic Ozone (25m/g)
Light provided by a 36" Aquactinics T-5 Fixture that has (5) 39W Bulbs
Water flow from (2) Maxi-Jet 1200's.
Tank has 55lbs live rock w/ 35lb 1" Sandbed.

Do you think I can go ahead and add a frag and see how it does? Any other advise I can have to help me along with my setup? Thanks again.

 

[NewSchool04]

I think a good measure of when a tank is ready is corraline production. If you are growing corraline algae, scraping it off the glass, etc. you are ready.
Just a little thing I learned from a local reefer that seems to be right on.

 

[Jocko]

If you work your way up to it, then you'll know when you're ready. Maybe start with some zoos or an easy LPS. When they are happy, then try another LPS. After a while when all the corals look happy, you can try a nice easy SPS like some Monti. Once that's doing well, try another SPS... eventually you'll have happy Acros. Of course you'll lose things along the way and in the process you'll learn from your mistakes. You've obviously been taking it slow, so just keep doing that and you'll be fine!

 

[Charlie97L]

i can personally attest to the step by step method. i had a small brown stag frag that i tried right at the beginning, and it died a few days later. since february, i've been going really slowly, adding fish and coral. i started with a leather and some mushrooms, then went to some zoos and rics, then a clam, then some harder LPS. when my plate coral doubled in size in about a month, i figured i was ready to make the SPS plunge. i haven't regretted the learning curve, it also lets your tank get through those growing pains and algae blooms common with new tanks. i just put in my first sps this weekend and they're both doing great. it was definitely worth the 7 month wait and learning curve, and having the confidence to try SPS and being reasonably sure it will do ok is a great feeling, rather than that uncertain AAAEGH i had the first time.

 

[Clouded]

You might be ok...you need to test, alk, calc, and mag see where those levels are at and then I would try a monti of some digi, those tend to be hardy corals in the SPS field...see how it goes with that and then you can slowly add more and more SPS...

 

[Kiel'thalin]

Thanks for the advise, I better wait, my water parameters just got into a stable level a week ago, but still need to make some adjustments:
Temp: 77-79
Specific Gravity: 1.020
Calcium: 300ppm (used to be ~400 range)
Phosphates 0ppm (used to be .025 ppm)
Ammonia/nitites/nitrates: 0 (was having nitrate problems)

I just got my refractometer/calcium/phophate test yesterday, so haven't got a chance to really pursue the adjustments required. I was just letting my LFS test my water, but that is a pain. Thanks again, that kinda eased my mind a bit to let me hold off longer than I originally planned.

 

[javajaws]

See if you can find some "trash frags" from a local reefer. That's what I did as a precursor to going out and paying big bucks for better frags.