First SPS additions

Hey all,

So I decided to take the plunge into the world of sps corals. When i setup my system I knew i wanted to do a mixed reef, so i set it up as best i could. My aquascape has a top shelf area reserved for sps while the bottom areas I set aside for lps. I positioned my radion pro more toward the back of the tank where my shelf for sps is. I also positioned my mp10s to blow most of their force on this top shelf area. I have calculated that combined these two mp10s are moving about 1600 gph. With my return pump blowing about 500 gph the total water movement in the tank is about 2100 gph or 35x my DT's total volume. I believe this should be enough water flow to get by.

Something that i know will be challenging about running a mixed reef is maintaining a happy medium in water quality that both sps and lps can live together. I am aware that Lps do better with a little more dissolved organics in the water than sps do. My question is where should I target to keep my nitrate at? Right now it is between 1 and 2 ppm. With my PO4 undetectable via salifert. I do have remnants of a cyano outbreak but I added a phosphate reactor to circumvent.

Anyway here is a photo of my first additions. A yellow birdsnest and a Blue and green acropora.



Feedback is welcome on my system setup

 

I would keep your nitrates below 5ppm for the SPS. Also if you have your phosphates below 0.05 that would be great. I have LPS mixed in with my sps system and they do ok. The biggest issue is the light, a lot of my chalices started to bleach under my radions so i had to move them all under ledges and caves

What size is your tank?

Also a phosphate reactor wont keep cyno away, good water flow and water quality will. The reactor (im assuming your running GFO) will keep your phosphates down

 

My tank a 60 gallon cube. All my lps are doing great, the only one that was bleaching was my goniastera so i moved it under a ledge.

I was always under the impression that cyano feeds off phosphates and so i reasoned to believe that keeping it low would make it not possible to grow. I guess theres more to it than that? I am running gfo in the reactor. To help keep water quality up I have a skimmer rated for 150 gallons, a refugium with macro algae and a deep sand bed. I am also thinking about adding a biopellet reactor.

 

Sounds like what you got right now is doing great. Dont go the biopellet route unless your nitrates get out of control like over 25ppm. With a small tank like yours you can control nitrates easy enough just by doing water changes. On my systems i do a 55 gallon water change every 3 weeks and have no detectable nitrates or phosphates

 

I don't think my nitrates could go that high unless something catastrophic happens. I have no fish as of right now so there isn't much contributing to bioload. I eventually will add fish but am in no hurry.

I was thinking about the biopellets as a means to do a UNLS. The main reason for this is I really enjoy feeding my corals and watching them eat. Doing this would let me feed more often.

 

Congrats on your first SPS! It looks like you picked some nice, colorful and healthy specimens!

 

Today I started seeing some PE in my acro and birds nest. Also what i believe is some growth! I wasn't sure if my system was ready but so far so good.

 

Looks great. Polyp extension is definitely a good sign.

 

congratulations on the PE! I know from reading all of the SPS keepers, that PE is a very good thing