Beginners guide to SPS ?

[Barbarosa]

Would it be possible for someone with some experience in keeping SPS to create a 'sticky' post to educate those of us who have successfully kept reef tanks before (mainly softies) and would like their next set-up to be purely SPS - a 'beginners' guide if you will.

The sort of information that would be useful would be circulation levels, water parameters, compatible livestock, lighting levels, substrate etc etc.

I'm sure you get the jist and unless I've missed an excellent post somewhere on the site I'm sure this would be helpful to many.

Thanks in advance.

[CurvBall]

Great idea! I will contribute to this, just at work but will add some info for ya later this evening. Cool.

[Tony B]

;)

http://www.reefcentral.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=5

Or......

I'm not expert but, I am starting to get good growth and some nice colour.

Keeping it "in a nutshell" and not going into too much detail, this is MHO and if it's wrong, MODS feel free to remove (nothing worse than bad advice).

Good light - halides (imo at least 250w bulbs) or lots and lots of T5s
Good water flow - closed loops, streams etc
Good calcium - 400 - 450ppm
Good alkalinity - around 10dkh
Good Magnesium - around 1350ppm
Stable temperature - around 27c
Salinity - SG 1.026/1.027 or 35ppt

IMPORTANT BIT = keep all the above params stable and avoid swings.

Use a good auto top up, IMHO this is a must (when water evaporates, it increases concentration of all the mineral and trace elements, then if you poor in a load of RO water this SWINGS back down) and continuous mineral supplementation (either with kalkwasser reactor or IMO a calcium reactor is better, it will add magnesium etc if you use the right media, like Schuran) makes life a lot easier for you and your SPS.

Employ good temperature control. Heating and cooling.

I'd also say having low concentrations of nutrients in the water is also very important if you don't want brown dull looking sps; this will mean you must have a sensible feeding regime for your fish and corals, effective nutrient export (skimmer(s), algae beds, water changes, dsb etc).

Live Rock is also important IMO, as this will help seed the tank with many critters that will help provide a beneficial service (bristle worms, shrimps etc) and even foods (pods).

Then, sit back and enjoy watching these great corals GROW!