Will LPS do well in my setup?

I want to get a bunch of different Euphyllia like Frogspawn and Torch Coral to add to my setup, but I keep the Nitrates at around 5ppm for the softies and macros I have in there. Would the LPS have a hard time with that level of Nitrates in there? I can lower it pretty easily with some water changes, I'm just seeing if it will work as it is since I don't want to change a good thing thats working for everything in there right now if I don't need to.

All of the rest of the nutrients are within normal reef parameters. My alk stays a little high at around 13DkH but nothing seems to be bothered by it. Thanks in advance.

 

What is your lighting?

Depending on that, your 5ppm of nitrates won't harm anything. You will be fine doing lps.

 

you should be fine even with PC bulbs.. but would mount them mid-higher up in lower flow. if you have t5 or mh then placement for light shouldnt matter as much.

 

+1 to above posts. You should be fine. 5ppm nitrates wont hurt lps.

 

Ok, thanks guys. Yeah I can have 8x54w t5's over it but I'm only running 2-3 right now cause the macros like low low lighting. I'll swap it up if I need to though. I know i probably will have to.

 

You will have to run most of them if not all. I do have one question, why would you buy an 8 bulb fixture and only run 2-3 bulbs? Why not just have purchased a 2 bulb fixture?

 

Well believe me, 3 weeks ago my tank was lit the heck up. It was blazingly bright in there. (keep in mind this is a 48" long tank) However, I gradually toned it back because I have a lot of macros in there and many of them are very delicate and dont like very much light. I was still burning some of them with just 2 bulbs. You have to get creative finding ways to shade them but still keeping the flow they like. Macros are a lot harder to keep happy than any coral I've tried. My softies were happy with 8 bulbs and just as happy with 2 of them. Macros in the shade could handle 4-6 bulbs, but even the ones out in the open on the bottom hate the light produced by that many. It's a balancing act I have to do with macros and coral in the same tank. This is all the red macro btw. The green doesnt really care too much from what I've seen, but reds are testy.

I'm going to need to make some more shade in there if I'm amping up the lighting again.

Here are some of the harder reds that I have doing pretty good in the tank







This is some of the Halymenia in its old location. It got seared after staying there only a few days so I moved it down to the right. It's a lower light area over there.

 

looks great! i agree, my macro algae i picked up from reefcleaners is finicky toward the lighting and flow. ive moved my flame algae two or three times since i got it because it kept getting burned up.

im down to two t5-ho 54 watt bulbs at the moment because of a ballast popping (new ones on order) and i picked up a couple LPS frags and they're doing fine under 108watts of T5. been like that for about a week. only corals i have so far beside some GSP which seems to grow in whatever condition, but anyway i just have fish and the LPS for the most part and they're doing fine. in fact the frogspawn is growing a third head, the hammerhead torch is still opening daily and eating when i target feed.

i change my water weekly on sundays. i test my water before and aft the change and yesterday the params were 10ppm of nitrate and 0 after the change. looking at my log its been this way for the last month. most it hit was 20ppm of nitrate 5 weeks ago prior to the water change. anyways the LPS dont mind the 10ppm at all.

the LPS are toward the bottom of the tank. hope that helps.

 

Ok thanks. Yeah those macros are a pain in the butt but theyre worth it. Even with the 2 T5's some of the gracillaria and another red are starting to turn orange so I dont know where to move them. 2 t5's still look make it very bright in the center of the tank and I havent noticed any problems with the corals. Could also be because I run a longer photocycle than a lot of people with reefs so lower light or not the corals still get enough sugars produced. Now I just need to find a good place to get some frogspawns and the like. The only place in town that sold em now has chains of their doors and dont answer the phone so I think theyre out of business = (