[mojoreef]

Alrighty then, SPS is the topic. I want to see some great picture on this one folks. All you SPS freaks this is your moment in the sun. Lets talk about feeding, lighting, fragging, mounting and so on. Got questions.......Spanky has the answers.


have fun



Mike

 

[Frank]

Great topic Mike .. On 90 I have 2,400 mh 10k and a CA reactor to keep the Calcium and ALK up. Without the reactor it was hard to keep the leaves were they should be. The one thing the new tank will have is more circulation. By a close loop that is one thing that most great SPS tanks have a lot of. Will here are some pics...

 

[Frank]

One more pic...

 

[Frank]

Did I say one more????

 

[Spanky]

Frank that's the most spectacular grouping of M. caps I've ever seen in my life! :beer:

 

[spsphreak]

I agree......amazing. Looks like a the real deal!!!! Here is a pic of one of my favorite SPS, my millepora.

 

[Shack]

OK crucify me now, what does sps stand for? What type of corals are they?

 

[spsphreak]

SPS stands for small polyp stonies or small polyp scleriterians. I know that spelling was way off.

 

[spsphreak]

scleractinian-there is the right spelling!!

Scott

 

[npaden]

Those are some nice caps Frank!

I'll throw a couple pics in. Still a baby tank as 90% of the sps are from frags added in December of 2001. The big yellow/green mille is from a frag added 1 year ago.

I use 400W Iwasaki's and VHO actinic supplementation. I use a calcium reactor as well as a kalkwasser stirrer/dosing setup. I personally feel the water flow is a very important factor in SPS growth - not velocity but flow. I try to keep my velocity under 4 ft/sec at all times while running about 10,000 gph through the tank.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[fishinchick]

Funny I thought I saw the word "discussion" not "pictures".

I have a few capricornis sp frags growing in my tank currently. reddish Orange, Orange/green striped, and tan. I see half of them growing fast under my PC lighting, and half of them not (the orange/green stripe is the slow one and thats the one I want to grow faster).

I understand that there are several different sp. of capricornis but nobody has been able to give me any other names so I can attempt to properly identify what I have. I suspect that the tank one is different from the others because of structure, growth, and polyps look a bit different. Any suggestions to make it easier to ID?

No. I am not posting a picture.

Do you guys feed anything to your tanks at all or do you rely on your refugiums (assuming you have them) to produce planktons to feed your tanks?

Do you add any suppliments? CA reactor or Kalk Reactor? What.

 

[spsphreak]

m. verucosa and m. tuberculosa are also cuplike montipora species. I have a tuberculosa that I refer to as a cap, and it is much slower growing and the body, for lack of a better word, is much thicker than a true capricornis'

Scott

 

[Spanky]

Adrienne, LOL get um girl!

>Do you guys feed anything to your tanks at all or do you rely on your refugiums (assuming you have them) to produce planktons to feed your tanks?<

I don't have a refugium, but I do feed the tank heavily on blender mush [heavily is a relative term, about a level teaspoon a day] and as a result fish poop and bacteria, etc. There's a different husbandry involved this way though. I rely on heavy skimming, carbon, and a big UV to keep water params closer to NSW.

>Do you add any suppliments? CA reactor or Kalk Reactor? What.<

Calcium chloride, (sodium bicarbonate and sodium carbonate), and strontium.

Jerel

 

[spsphreak]

Hey Fishinchick,

We run a calcium reactor and feed our guys homemade food as well as golden pearls. Dont' yell at me I only posted one small pic (and believe me that is tough for an SPS LOVER!!!!)lol
Scott

 

[Spanky]

Me too! LOL

 

[Stang69]

Ok guys im drooling here. Post more post more. I would like more info on feeding and exactly how you do it and also what ya feed please


Jeff

 

[spsphreak]

I feed gps once a day, the two smallest sizes, I only feed blender mush every other day, which is probably not enough

Scott

 

[mojoreef]

Feeding has become a hottly debated subject amongst SPS keepers. Personally I only feed the tank a large cube of blender mush every 2nd or 3rd day.

The feeding of SPS and what food to use I beleive tends to be more on the particle size than so much reliant on type. SPS have little mouths so they need food to be of a particle size that they can utilize (which if u read Chris's coral biology post it makes sence).

So lets have a little talk about what kinds of food and why?
Jerel on the blender mush I make I tend to relay on alot of differing types of Bi-valves, what do u uses mostly and why


Mike

 

[Shack]

ave a candy cane(calustrea?), a green branching hammer

Those are actually lps, by the way.


I have heard some people feed their sps "Golden Pearls" Do any of you use this and what results do you have from feeding that?

I have also heard of people dosing DT's phytoplankton to feed the sps but I have also read that SPS don't consume phytoplankton. I do know that a tank or refugium benefits from the dosing of phytoplankton in the way of feeding the detrivores and misc. life forms in there (copepods, amphipods, filter feeding feather dusters, spaghetti worms and the like). These animals, in return, feed the tank with zooplankton in the form of their offspring. You can also buy prepackaged products like Roti-Pods and feed ready made zooplankton to you tank as well.

Does feeding blender mush really help?? I would think that you'd have to blend the poo out of that stuff to make small enough particles for alot of sps to be able to consume.
What do you put into your blender mush? Do you use someones recipe?

 

[platapus]

Acro something!