hard and soft corals

[jammerz]

awhile back i was asking for suggestions on what to do with the left side of my tank on the bare rock.

Well i think ive decided that i want to do some acroporas and montiporas and such but while investigating ive came acroos this

http://users.rcn.com/jfox61/sps_faq.htm #10

Just curious if you guys thought that i already have to many softies to start mixing sps? I think the top of that rock would look really cool with a load of sps!

Any other ideas for it(the top of the rock) i was thinking of a large anemone but i would rather try the sps...

Thanks guys hope you are all doing well....

 

[wayne]

OK, I think that is a pretty good summary article. Also, do you have any LPS as they can also be hard on SPS.
As I recall you have 250 watts of MH - you should be ok there. If I was to want to start keeping SPS I would be worried about my water flow being adequate. I would run carbon 100% of the time as it will help remove some of the alleopathic compounds you fear. I recall you like to chuck in quite a lot of artificial coral foods - I would esearch more around some of these, especially as a 'artificial phyto' fuelled lgae bloom will be a real problem. You have Can and Alk readings now, but if you go to SPS and get going with gowth you'll need to top up the Ca, and you'll soon fion BiIonic solns are uneconomic.
Do you have Eric BOrnemans book, or A Calfos book of Coral Propogation? Do you have anyone locally you can get frags from - I would start with some easy stuff like Montipora and porites, maybe some of the more unusual plating corals, maybe heliopora. Maybe also Turbinaria. At this point I would not go to Acro's as they are very, very tough. I would principally be trying to find a cheap source of frags to experiment with

 

[S.Reef]

Personally a nice big maze brain would lookk sweet there...if you want sps I would go for it, try the montipora first because its a lot easier then the acros for the most part.

 

[jammerz]

thanks guys yes i do have some LPS, frogspawn, torch, and galexxea(sp?). would those interfer?
As far as water flow i am turning my tank over about 16 times per hour. Which i believe is pretty good. I do run carbon always. And the only thing im dosing is the green water phytoplankton. I dont have either of those books but i bet i could get them! I thought I could do a DYI calcium reactor and be ok. As far as frags i have lots of local resources...there is a popular monti. going around here called the Idaho grape its a nice deep purple and i can get a large frag right now for $25 so i think i will start with that. Ialso have a combined 500w of MH so do you think that they will grow pretty fast?
What makes acros so tough? just curious....
Your input is valued thank you-

 

[wayne]

Generally I would think you're ok with the LPS unless you think they can extend sweeper tentacles long enough to hit the SPS.

Water flow is something only you can comment on as you can see it , however 16 times is ok BUT
1. When you take into account dirtying of the puimps, head and so on a paper 16 times will likely be worth a bit less in the tank.
2. How is it distributed. You will want your sps to be inthe most turbulent, randomly flowed part of the tank, and I can't see if that's the case. All I can see are two powerheads, and the rock sits to one side, so you might need to work on that.

Dripping kalk is easier than a diy Ca reactor. That's up to you. Using proper phyto rather than artificail is very good.

I would say try it and see how it goes. The monti sounds a good choice, but I would rather try 3 or 4 different things rather than going for one big frag. Also if it's very purple it might well have been grown under very intense lighting and fade/brown out in your tank. So scout around and try to get a variety.

Acros are tough as despite their toughness inthe wild they are just fussy and hard in captivity unless you really are on the money with flow and general enviromental conditions. I have only tried them once, they grew a bit initially , and I then I screwed up and killed them - this is what is typical for many hobbyists I suspect