I have a 120 standard tank (24x24x48) mixed reef. Currently running 4 T5s, finnex LED, also have blue led moonlights. Can I start with sps? I have a tank full of zoas and lps. I'm also wondering if I can add a rbta? I have a rock flower anemone that is thriving.
Do I need new lights?
- Thread starter cbswindle
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P3FE
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Go for the RBTA, she should do well in your system. When you get it find a rock on your system with a good hole on it so she can attach her foot on, RBTA's love to have a safe place to attached their foot to, of course like any other anemone if they don't like the spot you put them in, they will find their own, and sometimes is not the one we will like them to be but we have to adapt to that. I had the same dimension tank a few years back with an 8 bulb T5 fixture over it and my SPS loved it. I made the transition to LED's in my tanks a couple of years back and I'm glad I did. I have no experience with finnex led and their ability to keep live stock but I can tell you from experience that I you want SPS you need at least 6 T5s to do the job. I would recommend that if you want to try SPS on your current system, start with the Montipora family, they are hardy and colorfull, especially Monti caps, and you can get them for about 20 dollars at the LFS. They are a good starter SPS and it will give you an idea on your lighting set up.
P3FE
Active Member
Invertebrates are not susceptible to ick, so there's no need to do that. You can get your RBTA and put it in your tank at any time. If your clowns we're expose to the ick outbreak i would treat them with cupramine for 14 days and after treatment is done observe for another 30 days to make sure they are healthy, the same will apply for any other fish that survived the outbreak. One more thing, don't be bumb out if your clowns don't host your anemones, it's a toss up when it comes to that, some do and some don't, mine don't care about my RBTA they prefer to swim around, I guess is a case by case basis, lots of articles about the behavior but no one seems to figure out why some do and some don't, so get you RBTA, get your clowns healthy and have fun with it!
Unfortunately, no fish survived. After I qt'd them, they died off one by one. The meds were too late. My lfs got me two black clowns and two skunk clones that I'm going to put in the qt next week. I was just wondering if the chances of hosting were greater if they qt'd together for a couple if weeks?
Carter o51
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Be careful with those finnex LEDs. Since they sit off the rim and have a low profile and aren't dimmable, they can bleach SPS. I used to run t5s and a blue finnex and I had to take it off cause it was too strong
P3FE
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Remember that the final goal of quarantine your fish is to give yourself and your display tank an extra layer of protection against the most common diseases. You can quarantine your clowns with your RBTA but if your fish get sick you gonna have to take her out to medicate. Quarantine tanks are usually bare bottom and little biological filtration which can lead to higher ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels than a display tank, anemones don't like that and you could end up killing them. I wouldn't worry about making sure they host your anemone, if it's going to happen it will, remember we can provide our live stock with the best conditions but we can't make them do what we want, sucks I know, but that's what happens when you play with nature.
That's a very good point about the water parameters in the qt. The lighting would be fine but it is bare bottom, sponge filter, and PVC pipe only. It has nice lighting because it used to be my 24 gal cube reef before I upgraded to the 120 
