Looking for a Mentor for sps dominant system

[Boku]

Hello everybody, as the title states I am looking for a Mentor.

I am looking for someone who has been keeping sps tanks for 10+ years who likes helping people and seeing them succeed.

I am new to salt and my tank is 6 months old. I have had some issues and lost some coral and would like that to stop. Today I watched BRS Randy's video on 10 year tanks and I'm taking his advice leading to this post.

The picture attached is my tank.

If you are interested please reply and, or send me a direct message.

Thanks in advance and happy reefing.

 

[Devaji]

I think this is a great idea. I hope you find someone to mentor you, hopefully locally too.
I am not an SPS guy but I tend to think if you make a complete SPS system there somewhat easier than a mixed reef.

good luck and happy reefing!

 

[Caravanshaka]

Looks like someone watched Ryan’s speech

I’m not sure on length of time they have had their tanks setup, but I’d check a few of these users build threads

@FarmerTy
@bubbaque
@aquavista99
@Dugless
@jolt

Also not sure how much time they have for mentoring, but you can definitely pick up a lot of useful information in these threads as a starting point!

 

[Irishman]

Welcome to R2R! I’ve kept a few SPS but am no way experienced in it.

 

[VR28man]

If you're looking for a mentor someone local is the best. Honestly, if you want to learn hands on, you should volunteer at the Shedd Aquarium's reef area for a few months; I'm sure you'll learn a ton.

I've only kept SPS for a year, but I'd make a few observations:

1. your parameters -alk, ca, mg, nitrate, phosphate especially - have to be solid and under control. First, they have to be stable for a few months (weekly checking, I'd say) after setting up the tank. I would say that your denitrifying bacteria should be working well before you start keeping especially SPS

2. I would say your tank ought to have decent coralline growth - and that AFAIC is part of the algae cycle that's woefully little-explained to beginners. Basically, the tank should have gone through the nitrifiying stage, diatoms, cyano, GHA, and then finally starting decent coralline growth only after it's matured this far.

Note that most people start with dry rock these day, making steps #1 and #2 take months compared to using, say, Florida aquacultured rock. Using the latter cuts a lot of time, but does not make it zero Trying to keep nitrate and phosphate down, not having a lot of livestock, I have heard will make this process even longer with dry rock.

3. at the same time as #1 and #2, you need to have a decent amount of microscropic benthic life sustainably growing - pods, diatoms, all kinds of bacteria and stuff. There should be a some amount of DOC in the tank. A tank with no detectable nutrients I'm told can be hard on SPS, especially if the tank is new. (a tank that's had its initial blooms and spikes, which goes ultra low nutrients, and has a good amount of constant nutrient input and export is supposedly good for SPS).

I think I lost my first Pocillopora colony around the tank's 6 month mark due to the fact that my tank did not have #1-3. After six more months, my pocilloporae and other SPS (mostly acros) grow fine.

[#4 IS EDITED FOR CLARITY]
4. Moreover, you have to dose something to keep things stable once you start having SPS and they start eating alkalintiy/Ca/Mg.. There are three basic methods I'm aware of - 1) kalk; 2) two part or variants like Triton, ATI essentials etc or 3) a calcium reactor. Pick one and stick with it. Two part is the easiest to set up, I believe, and I think the one most people go with. I've looked into thw other two but don't have any experience with them; however I don't have enough space or tank size to really justify the expense of a calcium reactor, IMO.

5. Your lighting makes a difference for some SPS. I had OK success with Kessils and pocillopora, Montipora Cap, Montipora digitata. But I always had shading and eventual problems with branching or tabling corals and the kessils.

I personally recommend, as a beginner light, T5s. Fixtures to fit most rimmed tanks are available cheap on the used market, and not much more expensive new 24", 36", and 48" T5 fixtures are available from Corallife (replace their bulbs with ATI, Giesemann, or other bulbs). This is I believe cheaper than even black box LEDs off ebay. If you want to pay more, ATI and Giesemann's fixtures are supposedly even better.

For your tank (standad 55 gallon?) I'd highly recommend one or (better) two corallife 48" T5 fixtures (you can get them on amazon, or even most Petcos have this length in stock), and replace the bulbs with ATI blue or coral plus bulbs (either all ine kind, or a mix). Put them on a timer to automatically come on and off. If you want, get LED strip lighting to supplement them if you want to save money/have an actinic look; run the t5s like 6 hours a day and the LED strip light (solely for looks) the remaining time.

6. some people feel that allowing the detritius, feces, etc. of a well stocked tank is enough to feed their SPS, and feel supplemental feeding is unecessary. That may be true, but I think feeding helps. There are lots of good powdered coral foods. Scientific studies have show newly hatched brine shrimp to be the best food for pocillopora, and I'd imagine that applies to other SPS's as well. Hatching is not that hard, and possibly a wash compared to target feeding powdered food.

My $0.02.

 

[jolt]

+1 @VR28man - there is so much value in having a local mentor (and support group, and buddies). I learned by finding the successful people in my area and going and seeing their setups. They probably thought I was crazy because I was taking notes and asking tons of questions. I am still learning from them today!

 

[jda]

Do you have a philosophy? Are you willing to change? 10+ year SPS people have usually drifted to acropora and most are quite opinionated on what they think is best... they are all not far from each other.

If you just want to read and learn, then here are two excellent places to start. They won't interact, but have posted a lot for people to soak up:
http://www.oregonreef.com/index.html
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2668064&highlight=copps

If you want somebody who can guide you from time to time and interact, then you will need to line up with them in most ways. I help some of the locals, but they all have moved to 2-3 inches of sand, lots of real live rock (hard to find now, but possible), routine water changes, CaRx, Metal Halide and lots of skimming. They have all moved away from Apex to "control" things, just monitor. They moved this way after seeing my tanks and so that I could help them some (not just me, there are a few others in the area that are very similar). We don't use any new products or methods.

Most of the super-experienced will not want to help somebody figure out something... it does nothing for them and they don't get anything out of it. Mostly, they have no experience with what the do not know and are not helpful.

If you are willing to be super pliable and go down the path of whatever the mentor is doing, then I would post this. If you have your mind made up about the path that you want to go (old school, high tech, etc.), then I would post this too. It will help to line somebody up.

 

[Ike]

To the OP, I don't have all the time I used to for this hobby, and I haven't posted much in years until just recently. However, I'm trying to make a little more time than I have the last couple years. I can't be a dedicated mentor, but I can try to be active in this thread and be somewhat of a mentor for you and anyone else that wants advice and guidance in this thread. I encourage others with a lot of experience and those 10+ year tank owners to join me, but if you want to help you better be able to show/tell us what you've done that qualifies you. I encourage healthy debate, but only if you've shown you're qualified. If you inexperienced people come in here and start throwing around advice and arguing with those that have maintained long-term SPS tanks this thread will likely die and I and others won't bother to continue.

-I've had multiple "10 year" tanks.
-I've owned and maintained a reef aquarium since I was a child and have been a part of the hobby and maintained (1-25+) aquariums consistently for the last 34 years
-I've made more mistakes than most people on these forums
-I tend to be experimentation oriented and have tried just about every trend that has ever existed in the reefing hobby, but often settle back on tweaked tried and true methods
-I read nearly every english aquarium and marine biology text book in existence through the mid 90's (they have a lot of "bad" info!, but also a lot of good info that is still relevant)
-I feel that keen observation of corals is one of the most crucial parts of being able to maintain an SPS tank for years
-If you want to dump a bunch of supplements in your tanks (other than ca, mg, alk) and think it's key to success in some way, I'm not your guy. Oh, and you're wrong!

 

[Ike]

Oh, and in the spirit of what Ryan said was talking about in his video... Here's one of my tanks about a year and a half before a very painful move. Unfortunately, I can be a mentor on what not to do and what to do when moving an SPS tank like this... Right now my display is a little sad, my frag tank looks great, though some of the 8" across colonies are taking up took much space. Let's call it a frag tank with an identity crisis ;Bored

http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/current-issue/article/156-april-2015-tank-of-the-month

 

[Ike]

If you're looking for a mentor someone local is the best. Honestly, if you want to learn hands on, you should volunteer at the Shedd Aquarium's reef area for a few months; I'm sure you'll learn a ton.

I've only kept SPS for a year, but I'd make a few observations:

1. your parameters -alk, ca, mg, nitrate, phosphate especially - have to be solid and under control. First, they have to be stable for a few months (weekly checking, I'd say) after setting up the tank. I would say that your denitrifying bacteria should be working well before you start keeping especially SPS

2. I would say your tank ought to have decent coralline growth - and that AFAIC is part of the algae cycle that's woefully little-explained to beginners. Basically, the tank should have gone through the nitrifiying stage, diatoms, cyano, GHA, and then finally starting decent coralline growth only after it's matured this far.

Note that most people start with dry rock these day, making steps #1 and #2 take months compared to using, say, Florida aquacultured rock. Using the latter cuts a lot of time, but does not make it zero Trying to keep nitrate and phosphate down, not having a lot of livestock, I have heard will make this process even longer with dry rock.

3. at the same time as #1 and #2, you need to have a decent amount of microscropic benthic life sustainably growing - pods, diatoms, all kinds of bacteria and stuff. There should be a some amount of DOC in the tank. A tank with no detectable nutrients I'm told can be hard on SPS, especially if the tank is new. (a tank that's had its initial blooms and spikes, which goes ultra low nutrients, and has a good amount of constant nutrient input and export is supposedly good for SPS).

I think I lost my first Pocillopora colony around the tank's 6 month mark due to the fact that my tank did not have #1-3. After six more months, my pocilloporae and other SPS (mostly acros) grow fine.

4. Moreover, you have to dose - kalk; two part or variants like Triton, ATI essentials etc; calcium reactor - to keep things stable once you start having SPS and they start eating alkalintiy/Ca/Mg.

5. Your lighting makes a difference for some SPS. I had OK success with Kessils and pocillopora, Montipora Cap, Montipora digitata. But I always had shading and eventual problems with branching or tabling corals and the kessils.

I personally recommend, as a beginner light, T5s. Fixtures to fit most rimmed tanks are available cheap on the used market, and not much more expensive new 24", 36", and 48" T5 fixtures are available from Corallife (replace their bulbs with ATI, Giesemann, or other bulbs). This is I believe cheaper than even black box LEDs off ebay. If you want to pay more, ATI and Giesemann's fixtures are supposedly even better.

For your tank (standad 55 gallon?) I'd highly recommend one or (better) two corallife 48" T5 fixtures (you can get them on amazon, or even most Petcos have this length in stock), and then 2 or 4 ATI blue or coral plus bulbs (either all, or one, or a mix). But them on a timer to automatically come off. If you want, get LED strip lighting to supplement them if you want to save money/have an actinic look; run the t5s like 6 hours a day and the LED strip light (solely for looks) the remaining time.

6. some people feed allow the detritius, feces, etc. of a well stock tank to feed their SPS, and feel supplemental feeding is unecessary. That may be true, but I think feeding helps. There are lots of good powdered coral foods. Scientific studies have show newly hatched brine shrimp to be the best food for pocillopora, and I'd imagine that applies to other SPS's as well. Hatching is not that hard, and possibly a wash with target feeding powdered food.

My $0.02.

Sorry man, but I'm going to pick this apart a bit. It's coming with a friendly and helpful tone and hopefully some others will get some use from my response, so please take it that way...

Many public institutions are still behind the hobby in their practices. It's not as bad as it used to be, but the Shedd is still among them. I used to volunteer there, and I also used to go to the wholesalers they received weekly shipments from. They couldn't keep their fish alive, let alone maintain a healthy reef tank... Just because you studied marine/fish/coral biology does not make you a good aquarist. So, my advice, other than picking some people to trust on the forums, do try to find a local and successful long-term reefer.

1.) I think you're mostly right here. However, trying to manipulate phosphates and nitrates through dosing or media is one of the biggest mistakes a newer reefer can make. Let the nitrates settle where they do. If they're building up you need a bigger protein skimmer, if they're not and you're under 25 ppm just go with it. If you're at 0 watch your corals color. I they're pale or throw out a lot of mesenterial filaments at feeding time (I consider this a stress response most of the time) then consider adding more fish and feeding more. If colors look vibrant, stay the course, but also realize that with happy corals comes growth, with growth comes a need for more nutrients, so adding fish load slowly as a tank matures can be beneficial. Also, keeping your fish fed better and feeding high protein foods frequently and ramping up feedings can help as well.

2.) Agreed, and these algae cycles are something that too many people are quickly reactive to rather than letting algae run the course to some degree. I've always been a strong believer in lots of feeding and lots of herbivores. I stick to tangs, rabbitfish, mexican turbos (I have one that's 12 years old), red leg hermits, tiger trochus, the ceriths with the same shell as the red leg hermits sometimes. I don't see much use for other herbivores

3.) Agreed! Driving nutrients too low is a very real problem in the hobby today. Too many carbon dosing regimens and protein skimmers are really good now. Driving something too low with GFO, carbon dosing or nitrogen or phosphorous dosing will destroy a lot of hard work very quickly!

4.) Other than the big three elements there is absolutely no dosing required to have a stunning SPS tank. I find ICP testing to be kinda fun, but mostly worthless and even misguided if it leads to the company that's testing your water selling you some overpriced trace elements.

5.) Don't skimp on lighting, if you go T5 get an ATI, if you go halides run top notch bulbs like a Radium with great reflectors, if you get LEDs get a quality brand or one of the white label type brands that is proven. You can have a very good tank with cheap lighting, it's tough to have a great SPS tank with lesser lighting. That looks like a 75 gallon, and I think it's a great size for a 6 bulb ATI T5, but you can have great success any numbers of ways.

6.) Newly hatched brine shrimp is likely too large for most species of Acropora. I grind up flake food with my fingers under water so that it creates a haze. It feeds some of my corals and numbers of other things, but I think generally having a good fish load and feeding them well (lots of good flake food!) is a big help. I stopped adding specific coral food years ago, but if I were to start again I'd probably use the 1-50 micron golden pearls again. There are very few commercial foods actually suitable size wise for what we believe Acrpora is best suited to ingest.

 

[jda]

I don't even know Ike, but I agree with most of this. Like I said before, most 10+ year people tend to gravitate into the same types of things with more in common than different.

I do not find coral feedings to be of benefit at all. I will not use any chemicals to lower N or P, but do like them as low as possible with natural methods which always leave a bit behind to drive the equilibrium forward. I also believe that best of breed lights are necessary to have a best of the best type of tank (although I do think that that MH >= T5 > LED, which not everybody agrees with) and that average lights lead to an average tank. I find ICP worthless in the end often leading to more questions than answers. I prefer to let nature take over without the use of chemicals. I do believe that NSW level N and P are best for color and growth and have seen it in my tank - however, I would rather have them much higher than try and "chase" the numbers with media or chemicals. I am a huge fan of Florida urchins to mow down algae - pincushions from ReefTopia have been long lived and VERY effective for me.

Some other things that I have learned... pay attention and read the fine print of any study, book or finding. Feeding freshly hatched brine shrimp to feed Poci might be fine, but that is not going to work for Acropora, Montis, Birdsnests or probably even Stylos - the two do not correlate. People like to point to a Riddle study that shows that Porites will max out with very low PAR very quickly and like to think that this translates to all SPS - this is a bad assumption. Lastly, when in doubt, go with what nature does... these corals evolved in these conditions, so don't try and outsmart nature too much.

 

[VR28man]

Sorry man, but I'm going to pick this apart a bit. It's coming with a friendly and helpful tone and hopefully some others will get some use from my response, so please take it that way...

No problem at all! Feedback most welcome, since you have much more SPS experience. I wanted to at least get the OP started in the right direction.

Both your and @jda 's posts have a lot of good stuff, and I have random comments.

10+ year SPS people have usually drifted to acropora and most are quite opinionated on what they think is best... they are all not far from each other.

This makes total sense; if one's looking for mentoring, you do have find someone who's tank you want to emulate, and at least initially adopt the same philosophy to doing things or else it does you no real good.

Many public institutions are still behind the hobby in their practices. It's not as bad as it used to be, but the Shedd is still among them. I used to volunteer there, and I also used to go to the wholesalers they received weekly shipments from. They couldn't keep their fish alive, let alone maintain a healthy reef tank... Just because you studied marine/fish/coral biology does not make you a good aquarist. So, my advice, other than picking some people to trust on the forums, do try to find a local and successful long-term reefer.

That's sad to hear. That being said, working for a large organization, I know how hard it is to change procedures and thinking. Heck, you couldn't pay me to manage 20 random experienced reefers from R2R running a public aquarium, just because one would say "Radions!" and the next would say "Halides".......

However, trying to manipulate phosphates and nitrates through dosing or media is one of the biggest mistakes a newer reefer can make. Let the nitrates settle where they do.

Agreed. That's my impression of a lot of "help" threads.

Other than the big three elements there is absolutely no dosing required to have a stunning SPS tank. I find ICP testing to be kinda fun, but mostly worthless and even misguided if it leads to the company that's testing your water selling you some overpriced trace elements.

This is correct; I'll modify my post on this to be clear for the OP. Pick one of the three basic methods and stick with it; it does not need to be fancy. I've jumped on the ATI essentials train, and it works decent enough for my purposes. But regular two part I'm sure also works.

5.) Don't skimp on lighting, if you go T5 get an ATI, if you go halides run top notch bulbs like a Radium with great reflectors, if you get LEDs get a quality brand or one of the white label type brands that is proven. You can have a very good tank with cheap lighting, it's tough to have a great SPS tank with lesser lighting. That looks like a 75 gallon, and I think it's a great size for a 6 bulb ATI T5, but you can have great success any numbers of ways.

Agreed on this; again I think ATI bulbs, either in a cheap fixture or their own (allegedly more efficient and powerful) fixture is the easiest way to go.

At the same time, I've fallen to the cult of @jda , and have two new hamilton MH pendants and their ballasts in my closet ready for my upcoming build.

6.) Newly hatched brine shrimp is likely too large for most species of Acropora. I grind up flake food with my fingers under water so that it creates a haze. It feeds some of my corals and numbers of other things, but I think generally having a good fish load and feeding them well (lots of good flake food!) is a big help. I stopped adding specific coral food years ago, but if I were to start again I'd probably use the 1-50 micron golden pearls again. There are very few commercial foods actually suitable size wise for what we believe Acrpora is best suited to ingest.

I do not find coral feedings to be of benefit at all.....Feeding freshly hatched brine shrimp to feed Poci might be fine, but that is not going to work for Acropora, Montis, Birdsnests or probably even Stylos - the two do not correlate. .

Thanks, good feedback!

I am a huge fan of Florida urchins to mow down algae - pincushions from ReefTopia have been long lived and VERY effective for me.

I tried a tuxedo urchin and it wound up eating all my coralline, and I think it liked coralline more than GHA (or maybe it ate all the easy to get GHA and started going after the coralline). Are pincushions the same way? The urchin was otherwise awesome and I hated selling it.

 

[Ike]

No problem at all! Feedback most welcome, since you have much more SPS experience. I wanted to at least get the OP started in the right direction.

Both your and @jda 's posts have a lot of good stuff, and I have random comments.



This makes total sense; if one's looking for mentoring, you do have find someone who's tank you want to emulate, and at least initially adopt the same philosophy to doing things or else it does you no real good.




That's sad to hear. That being said, working for a large organization, I know how hard it is to change procedures and thinking. Heck, you couldn't pay me to manage 20 random experienced reefers from R2R running a public aquarium, just because one would say "Radions!" and the next would say "Halides".......



Agreed. That's my impression of a lot of "help" threads.




This is correct; I'll modify my post on this to be clear for the OP. Pick one of the three basic methods and stick with it; it does not need to be fancy. I've jumped on the ATI essentials train, and it works decent enough for my purposes. But regular two part I'm sure also works.



Agreed on this; again I think ATI bulbs, either in a cheap fixture or their own (allegedly more efficient and powerful) fixture is the easiest way to go.

At the same time, I've fallen to the cult of @jda , and have two new hamilton MH pendants and their ballasts in my closet ready for my upcoming build.





Thanks, good feedback!



I tried a tuxedo urchin and it wound up eating all my coralline, and I think it liked coralline more than GHA (or maybe it ate all the easy to get GHA and started going after the coralline). Are pincushions the same way? The urchin was otherwise awesome and I hated selling it.

I love MH and T5's. Picking one over the other wonb't determine success, but just from a pure aesthetic standpoint I doesn't get much better than a radium driven by an "HQI" ballast.

Thanks for taking things in stride, and for the thoughtful response!

 

[jda]

All urchins that I have ever had will eat coralline once all/most of the soft algae is gone. When you get really good at this, this is how you deal with coralline where you pull it off in sheets... and the urchins become your best friends:

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Great advice here. My only thing I would add

It’s not the length of time but the experience. Obviously I wouldn’t put weight on advice I got from someone 1 or 2 years in versus 20. But also you shouldn’t ask me what apex is and I’m 30 plus years in. Not everyone knows all, or there may different ways to do something.

I think mentors are good, but it doesn’t take away from the responsibilities of the individual to research and try.

Someone that claims they never ever made a mistake truly never learned.

 

[Boku]

@Ike @jda

First I would like to thank everybody for their input!!!

I will try to answer all the questions and provide more information about my system.

I would say that I plan to be VERY malleable. I would like to have an exceptionally nice SPS tank and plan to put a lot of trust in mentor. The tank is over 6 months old now but I have been researching reef tanks for nearly 3. I started the aquarium hobby with High Tech Planted tanks and made the decision to leave freshwater and go to salt about a year ago. There seems to be a LOT more contradicting information in Reef tanks than I found in freshwater. Based on information that I received from several sources I started getting some test corals and then some SPS. Things were going good for some time and then I lost all of my SPS. I "fixed" the "issue" got more sps, lost it all again.... Now I am seeking help from an experienced reefer who I can listen to and produce a tank. I have been unable to find anybody close to me that has the experience and proven results I am looking for.

Tank Information

Tank: 65g Drilled. 48x15x16
Sump: Trigger 34 Sapphire
Lighting: Aquatic Life Hibrid 4x Blue +, 2 Kessil 360x
Skimmer: IceCap K2-120
Return Pump: Eotech S2
Flow Pumps: 2x Gyre 230 in Oceanic Gyre Cycle mode
GHL Profilux4 controller
GHL 2.1 Doser (currently not dosing as there are only a few stony corals in the system right now.
Koralin denitrator reactor

The fish stock is fairly high but this was done on purpose as the sps tanks that I was finding that I liked had a High nutrient import, and high export system.

 

[Ike]

Let's start with your basic parameters, how and if you've calibrated your refractometer and some details on how corals other than SPS have done. Also, any description of how the corals died would be helpful. Also, do you know why you lost the SPS both times?

Nothing wacky so far from what you've described, though I am curious what nitrate has been testing at and why you're running a denitrator.

 

[Ike]

Also, are you using 0 TDS RO/DI for make-up water?

 

[VR28man]

All urchins that I have ever had will eat coralline once all/most of the soft algae is gone. When you get really good at this, this is how you deal with coralline where you pull it off in sheets... and the urchins become your best friends:

OK. When I grow coraline that well I'll get another urchin. Seriously, they were awesome creatures, even though I couldn't bear seeing my rocks be picked white..........

 

[hart24601]

Some other things that I have learned... pay attention and read the fine print of any study, book or finding. Feeding freshly hatched brine shrimp to feed Poci might be fine, but that is not going to work for Acropora, Montis, Birdsnests or probably even Stylos - the two do not correlate. .

How about studies with acros?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03946975.2015.1119006?scroll=top&needAccess=true