Crucial factors to Maintaining a successful SPS tank

[joker577]

Since still only being 17 and sometimes and not always being able to give the tank 24/7 attention (as im sure almost everyone else isn't either!) I like to try and keep things as maintenance free as possible...cleaning the glass,lights, cleaning the collection cup are basically the only things I do to the tank aesthetically but I now need more help determining if I'm doing the right thing as far as feeding and dosing. From what I know the most crucial factors are calcium/alkalinity/magnesium and keeping all undesirable levels at 0, for feeding the tank I do flakes once a day (formula one) and at night around 8 pm 2 hours before the lights go off ( i run a 11 1/2 hour photo period) I take a piece of Rod's food, Cyclopeeze (freeze dried), and Mysis shrimp and use that for my last meal. Do the SPS benefit from that type of hodgepodge smorgasbord of a meal? My test kits were a little bit off on my calc and alk and I accidently had my calcium at 500 and my alk was 7, generally I like to keep calcium about 460-480 and alk 10-12 to factor in how much is absorbed by coralline/SPS/clam/etc. and have recently picked up ESV B-Ionic for my dosing and use Seachem Fuel for trace elements. Sorry for such a long post I just wanted to hear from outside sources to make sure I was doing the right thing

[ChilisREasy]

i think seachem fuel is bad..theres metal in that stuff, copper,nickel, so on...small doses..about 1 microgram per ML but it could build up...yes SPS do benifit from zooplankton but cylops is a bit large..try KENT zoo-plex...my stlyo & porites loves that stuff...your alk & calcium are fine...just keep your flow high...i know by experiance they need alot of flow...enough to kill most other coral species

[joker577]

Fuel was an impulse buy and was a tad cheaper at the time than other products but it's almost out and I won't be getting anymore after that. I have 26x turnover in the tank from 4 different outputs (2 koralias/ 2 overflow outputs) and I try and create dispersed flow by aiming them at each other. I'm definately going to look into the zooplex, I was interested before but at the time didn't have the money to buy , it was quite interesting though a SPS polyp had a piece of mysis shrimp caught to it and it almost seemed to be trying to eat it, i'd never seen that before!

[Dagrape]

I am no expert but you will find that most of the guys with the AMAZING SPS tanks don't feed any type of stuff specially formulated for corals. I think the 3 most important things for SPS to thrive are proper Calc/Alk/Mag levels, good lighting (T5 or MH), and TONS of flow.

[ChilisREasy]

i forgot to mention lighting lol

[joker577]

From what I've been told when I feed with rod's food/mysis/brine/formula one etc. and thaw it together it feeds the SPS indirectly and my lighting is 2x250 14000k MH

[ChilisREasy]

lighting is great, 14k will bring out the color, 2x250 will give radiation lost with blue lights.so your good there....but the feeding...the brine & mysis is only good for the fish...SPS have very tiny polyps...they cant eat shrimp..maybe baby brine shrimp..but not that large stuff

[joker577]

Yay I got baby brine haha...what I meant by indirect relationship was like feeds the fish and copepods, fish release waste and other excrements and the small pods can be eaten

[ChilisREasy]

yea that works too good for SPS corals..but dont expect it to work with filter feeders..thats a completely different ball game

[Wiskey]

Originally Posted by Dagrape

I am no expert but you will find that most of the guys with the AMAZING SPS tanks don't feed any type of stuff specially formulated for corals. I think the 3 most important things for SPS to thrive are proper Calc/Alk/Mag levels, good lighting (T5 or MH), and TONS of flow.

Agreed

I would add that spectacular filtration is also important.

Whiskey

[chrischris]

and that you need to make sure you have very good water change schedual or all your sps will lose their tissue

[joker577]

What all would you classify as a filter feeder? Sponges and tubeworms? My filtration is my sump with about 20 lbs of LS and chaeto along with a Octopus Xtreme NS-150 skimmer

[ChilisREasy]

filter feeder is anything that cannot live from the light or easy feedings of shrimp...invertabrates such as feather worms, scallops, sea apples, and corals such as Nepthyigorgia, Dendronepthya & Gorgonians, sponges are non-photosynthetic as well, but some can live of chemicals produced by algae & are easy to keep. there are hard corals & even SPS corals that are filter feeders, but SPS filter feeders are not YET seen in the hobby..try to avoid these corals as it takes a special system to raise them..if you even attempt one in a SPS system you will mess it up

[joker577]

The only filter feeder I have is a feather duster and it seems to pick up food from when I feed with my shotgun style of feeding lol

[husky_1]

In some circles your CA and ALK targets are too high and would say that keeping everything close to NSW would be the best bet. CA around 420 Alk around 7 and SG around 1.026. They would suggest that you keep an eye on Potassium at a 380 - 420 level. I think the general thought with this is that these corals have adapted to these levels over many many years, and anything outside normal parameters puts undue stress on your coral.

For me, I cannot say for sure but I am now going to start delving into the bacteria driven systems, so I am now working on realigning my parameters down to these levels, except K (Potassium), which I will have to raise from about 250 to the higher level.