New 45g SPS thread

[kwirky]

It doesn't feel right to continue my previous thread on my 45g tank because I lost all the previously hosted photos. So here's a new thread with the latest photos of my tank.

So I've been using 100% well water because hauling RO/DI water from the city has turned out to be too difficult for my lifestyle. It's been running quite well anyways though. I do water changes about every 45 days because of the high KH of the well water. I dose only calcium because the top off water's super high in mineral content. My potassium stays at a steady 400+ which is a bonus (Potassium was so expensive till some competition came to the market).

There's only two fish ATM, a single blue/green chromis and a lawnmower blenny. I lost the royal gramma during an extended power outage along with one of my SPS colonies. I see fish every day at work and honestly the coral excites me much more. Whenever I add more fish it's going to be something cool and rare, like ornamental frogfish or the likes. That'll be when availability and my budget coincide .

As for some advice for those wanting to keep SPS? If you want bright colours keep your nutrient levels VERY low. Undetectable nitrates on something that tests as low as 0.25ppm is recommended. I don't run rowaphos at home because there isn't much for feeding (only two fish). Also be patient if a coral browns out on you. There were a few times I was about to remove a colony or frag only to have start to explode a couple days later.

Getting certain colours will require certain lighting though. There are some colours that just don't show up in my 14k MH lighting and there are some that I have that don't show up under some T5 combinations. Some colours are there but they don't show up unless you have the right coloured lighting (like pink for instance under fiji purples).

Sometimes SPS corals grow towards each other so be prepared to snap branches or move colonies that are getting close because trouble ensues when they touch each other.

LOTS of flow is required for SPS but never have corals directly in the path of a powerhead or they could get bleached. Too high of flow can also cause some algaes to grow on some corals (like where flow wraps around the glass).

And I'm a zeovit supporter 100% for SPS corals, no if ands or buts. It really does work (from personal and professional experience).

• 45g 24x18x18 w/ rear external overflow
• aprox 20g of sump volume
• auto-top off with 14g resevoir built into the sump
• using 100% well water that's very high in potassium (and a whopping 18dkh before salt added).
• 250W 14k aquaconnect MH in sunlife supply lumenmax 3 and galaxy ballast
• vortech MP-40W powerhead (lately been run 100% without pulse. need more flow soon)
• mag 7 return
• maxijet 1200's in the sump on wavemaker to keep the sump clean.
• filter socks
• 550VA APC UPS
• 120mm DC fan on during daylight cycle for temp control.
• Aqua-C remora skimmer (wish I had something better but it's working ok)
• Zeovit 1.5L reactor (0.5L media run, changed every 30 days)
• dose the following KZ products daily: Zeobak, Zeofood, Zeostart, stylopocci-glow, amino acid concentrate, coral vitalizer, 1 tablespoon anhydrous calcium chloride.
• dose ZeoSpur 2 periodically when it needs it
• Dose Grotech ABC mineral supplement weekly (20mL each)

disclaimer: Any browned out or half dead colonies where purchased or taken home for free that way. For a while I liked to "save" coral but I've been losing my patience for it and have started to feel it's the store's responsibility to maintain colour, not the hobbyists'. If it's browned our or bleached, don't buy it and the LFS'll get the message. When people buy browned out coral that causes the LFS to believe selling unhealthy coral is the norm.

[guysmiley]

That looks great!

Garrick.

[fishytime]

Tank is lookin good Sean...for a bb tank j/k. I disagree with you about the browning out of sps. I Dont think it means that the coral is unhealthy. Some colonies or shipments just dont get treated equally during shipping.Its not surprising to me when a coral has browned out after spending 3-4 days in the dark in a small bag, getting shakin about like a martini. Unfortunately,it is difficult in an LFS environment to maintain stable enough conditions for sps to thrive. I have had a frag or two lose some of its colour (not brown but...) just from being moved across the city. I have also seen a frag that was green in its original tank that has turned pink in my tank. I think to say that any coral in a LFS that is browned out is unhealthy is a broad statement. I have seen browned out coral in every LFS that I frequented before I was at RC. Does that mean that every store that sells sps has unhealthy systems?

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Tank is lookin good Sean...for a bb tank: mrgreen: j/k. I disagree with you about the browning out of sps. ... Its not surprising to me when a coral has browned out after spending 3-4 days in the dark in a small bag, getting shakin about like a martini. Unfortunately,it is difficult in an LFS environment to maintain stable enough conditions for sps to thrive.I have seen browned out coral in every LFS that I frequented before I was at RC. Does that mean that every store that sells sps has unhealthy systems?

It's just a frustration with the market in Calgary, really. SPS is a niche market that Calgary doesn't have the capability to support really. Fish sells faster than coral so LFS's won't spend the time and money required to keep SPS healthy and colourful. The only business in Calgary that has good healthy SPS for sale all the time is Coralmaster (Greg). And he sells frags because there's not enough demand for anyone to start up a full propagation facility to sell entire colonies.

My theory is that if people stop buying browned out SPS either the stores will stop stocking it or put in the effort required to sell it healthy. Probably the stores would just stop stocking it and sell frogspawn and zoos n such.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by kwirky

My theory is that if people stop buying browned out SPS either the stores will stop stocking it or put in the effort required to sell it healthy.

I've seen many stores sell their brown colonies for close to cost, and in that case, I think it's a great deal and I'll take responsibility for them turning blue or purple again. Honestly, coral don't come in brown, they just go that way.
Further, we can't expect stores to be able to maintain perfect systems for keeping color, when most hobbyists can't even do it long term.

[fishytime]

I think in most cases its a stability issue. Thats what corals do, they take root and spread. In a LFS scenario they are constantly being shuffled around. I have one piece in particular in my tank that didnt seem to want to color up for me no matter where I tried to place it in the tank. I finally gave up on trying to find the right spot for it and left alone. Its coming up on a couple months and its just now starting to regain its color. I suspect if I had just glued it down when I first got it, it would have settled in for me much sooner.

[kwirky]

so it's that time of year. Vinegar time. I've begun the process of soaking components piece by piece in vinegar while I have spares thrown in the tank.

[untamed]

I'm beginning to question the "low nutrients = good colour" thing... When I lost my last fish in my previous tank, I just kept the system going with no fish. No fish...no feeding...super low nutrient load...and my coral lost all their colours. During this unintended experiment, I continued with normal water changes and Ca/Alk supplementation.

In my current tank, the coral colour is outstanding and I feed super-heavy. I can't imagine a higher nutrient system. It is puzzling...

[Delphinus]

My take - it's not so much about "low nutrient" as it is about "low leftover nutrients." If you put in nothing, then it's low nutrient, true, but also the corals have nothing to pull out of what gets put in. In your tank, untamed, you may feed heavy, but what's your NO3? I bet it's pretty low to negligible. So it may not be a "higher nutrient" system per se, it's just a system with a high throttle. High input -> high output.

I dunno, I could just be talking nonsense..

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

My take - it's not so much about "low nutrient" as it is about "low leftover nutrients." If you put in nothing, then it's low nutrient, true, but also the corals have nothing to pull out of what gets put in. In your tank, untamed, you may feed heavy, but what's your NO3? I bet it's pretty low to negligible. So it may not be a "higher nutrient" system per se, it's just a system with a high throttle. High input -> high output.

I dunno, I could just be talking nonsense..

So this is a discussion of the definition of a low-nutrient tank, I'm assuming? Myself I have two terms: low-nutrient and zero-nutrient, which are not the same thing. Low-nutrient is a tank with low nitrates and phosphates, while a zero-nutrient tank is zero nitrates and phosphates. Corals tend to adapt easier to low-nutrient systems than zero-nutrient systems but zero-nutrient systems have the most promise for harder to keep colours in some of the new/more rare SPS.

yeah it's what's left over that counts. Feeding a lot isn't too bad if you have fish with high metabolisms and a marauding gang of inverts that eat anything the fish don't. It's about converting the food into something else (usually energy). Also if you have lots of algae that'll lower the nutrients.

As for coral colouration different corals have different requirements. Some people will do awesome with a certain kind of coral yet another doesn't do so well. It's the zero/low nutrient systems that seem to have the highest chance with the largest variety of corals, especially the hard to keep pastel shade variety (the ones that look like they're bleached but they aren't).

From my experience at the store, SPS don't do well in any of the tanks with large numbers of fish because the nitrates are VERY hard to keep under 20 in those tanks. Even some of the "reef" tanks have nitrates around 10 and the SPS brown out in those. The best success so far has been in a tank running zeovit with 2-4 fish at the most and zero liverock. Liverock die-off contributes to nutrients as well and I've found liverock dies off for even 6 months.