Sps dominated nano reef. Is it possible?

[GHOSTLY]

So let's get started. I'm moving houses soon and ill be draining my tank and I'm thinking of sps dominated. I don't have a ato and auto doser but I'm willing to buy one. My light is radion xr30 pro and I have a 900gph pump along with a cp20 powerhead. Is there anything I should do? it won't be acropora but it will be lots of sps, some lps, and very little softies. I'm looking for tips, best setup (sand no sand), dosing regimen, husbandry etc

 

[Diveks]

So let's get started. I'm moving houses soon and ill be draining my tank and I'm thinking of sps dominated. I don't have a ato and auto doser but I'm willing to buy one. My light is radion xr30 pro and I have a 900gph pump along with a cp20 powerhead. Is there anything I should do? it won't be acropora but it will be lots of sps, some lps, and very little softies. I'm looking for tips, best setup (sand no sand), dosing regimen, husbandry etc

I used to have an acro dominated tank in a biocube 16 a few years back. Used a hydra 26 as my lights. Worked out very well (even better than my 50g right now sadly, im struggling with keeping some corals in it). Acros grew like crazy, accidently snipped off a bit a few days later new tips, i didn't even dose but i do have some two little fishies two part on hand. For my tank weekly water changes i did was enough.

Setup:
Tank: biocube 16
Rocks: liverock (thinking this helped my tank establish better than my dry rock tanks)
Sand: Yes, thin layer
Dosing: no, but two little fishies two part on hand just in case
Wavemaker: mp10

Husbandry:
Weekly water change (aquaforest probiotic salt)
Feeding 1x a day

Fish & inverts:
A clown
A mandarin (not permanent resident, but was fat from tons and tons of pods in the nano)
Some trochus snails
A blue leg hermit

This is just from my past experience, i am now struggling with keeping some sps in a larger tank with perfect water conditions im guesssing from lack of diversity of bacteria ect so i am experimenting by seeding the tank with liverock. Had to mention i had a lot of algae growth in the biocube which i had to take out by hand each water change but didn't bother the acros at all.

Goodluck!

 

[GHOSTLY]

I used to have an acro dominated tank in a biocube 16 a few years back. Used a hydra 26 as my lights. Worked out very well (even better than my 50g right now sadly, im struggling with keeping some corals in it). Acros grew like crazy, accidently snipped off a bit a few days later new tips, i didn't even dose but i do have some two little fishies two part on hand. For my tank weekly water changes i did was enough.

Setup:
Tank: biocube 16
Rocks: liverock (thinking this helped my tank establish better than my dry rock tanks)
Sand: Yes, thin layer
Dosing: no, but two little fishies two part on hand just in case
Wavemaker: mp10

Husbandry:
Weekly water change (aquaforest probiotic salt)
Feeding 1x a day

Fish & inverts:
A clown
A mandarin (not permanent resident, but was fat from tons and tons of pods in the nano)
Some trochus snails
A blue leg hermit

This is just from my past experience, i am now struggling with keeping some sps in a larger tank with perfect water conditions im guesssing from lack of diversity of bacteria ect so i am experimenting by seeding the tank with liverock. Had to mention i had a lot of algae growth in the biocube which i had to take out by hand each water change but didn't bother the acros at all.

Goodluck!

No dosing whatsoever? Did you have an ato?

 

[Diveks]

No dosing whatsoever? Did you have an ato?

the dosing really depends on the tank some consume more and some don't just gotta test if you need it, my tank didn't need any as the water changes were enough.

Yes had an ato, IMO atos are a livesaver, its very hard to keep up with toping off the tank at exactly the same level. Its easy for the water chemistry to go up and down just from water evaporating too much so i suggest you get an ato.

 

[GHOSTLY]

the dosing really depends on the tank some consume more and some don't just gotta test if you need it, my tank didn't need any as the water changes were enough.

Yes had an ato, IMO atos are a livesaver, its very hard to keep up with toping off the tank at exactly the same level. Its easy for the water chemistry to go up and down just from water evaporating too much so i suggest you get an ato.

If you got away with water changes in a cube I think I could with a tiny bit of manual dosing. I will get an ato but the tank won't have too much sand maybe a cm or no sand and it won't be acro dominated.

 

[GHOSTLY]

More people anyone?

 

[jeffww]

Running for 2.5 years now dosing esv. Everything grown from pinky/thumb sized frags.
Edit: grow montis, acropora, anacropora, corallimorphs,acans and gonis.

 

[GHOSTLY]

Running for 2.5 years now dosing esv. Everything grown from pinky/thumb sized frags.

Looks good! What's your parameters, do you have an ato, lighting etc

 

[jeffww]

Ive run ai prime 16hd + kessil a80. For about a year. Now I run 360x + 2 a80 for better color mix and spread. Going for about 8 months now. Probably dont need such excess light as I have everything tuned to about 500 par at the top and 100 at the sand. But I plan on upgrading eventually so I bought bigger. Alk is 8. ATO and doser is absolutely necessary for a true sps nano. your coral to water volume is extremely skewed so you run through alk and cal faster than kalk topoff can compensate. For about 1.5 years I ran the tank using the third head of my dosinf pump to estimate evap by adding a fixed volume of water daily and fine tuning manually at the end of the week. An optical ato made life easier for me so I use that now. Flow comes from a gyre 2000. Current doser is a redsea 4 head. I had a coral box that caused a crash due to malfunction. Absolutely do not skimp on that component. Everything can be budget but your doser is the core life support of an sps nano. I also use an independent temp controller on top of the heater since heater failure on a small tank will be a total kill off.
Edit: oh yah, for the first year or so i ran it on two a80 blues/tuna sun

 

[GHOSTLY]

Ive run ai prime 16hd + kessil a80. For about a year. Now I run 360x + 2 a80 for better color mix and spread. Going for about 8 months now. Probably dont need such excess light as I have everything tuned to about 500 par at the top and 100 at the sand. But I plan on upgrading eventually so I bought bigger. Alk is 8. ATO and doser is absolutely necessary for a true sps nano. your coral to water volume is extremely skewed so you run through alk and cal faster than kalk topoff can compensate. For about 1.5 years I ran the tank using the third head of my dosinf pump to estimate evap by adding a fixed volume of water daily and fine tuning manually at the end of the week. An optical ato made life easier for me so I use that now. Flow comes from a gyre 2000. Current doser is a redsea 4 head. I had a coral box that caused a crash due to malfunction. Absolutely do not skimp on that component. Everything can be budget but your doser is the core life support of an sps nano. I also use an independent temp controller on top of the heater since heater failure on a small tank will be a total kill off.

Thanks! Definitely going to get a cheap ato and invest in a dosing pump. I think I got flow and light down. Probably also going to invest in salt with lower alk or mix salt

 

[jhuntstl]

ATO and a doser is important imo if you're going SPS dominant. I use All-For-Reef and would recommend it for the simplicity and only needing a single dosing head. I use a Kamoer X1 Pro 2 for dosing and a Kamoer SE ATO. They are both affordable and reliable from my experience.

I believe in a large CUC(but also feeding them when needed), dosing live phyto, high flow, minimal to no media use(carbon, gfo, etc), a skimmer, good lighting, not chasing low nutrients, and adding as much bacterial diversity as possible.

I'm a little over 6 months in. I have way too many frags and will prob be upgrading soon.

 

[jeffww]

ATO and a doser is important imo if you're going SPS dominant. I use All-For-Reef and would recommend it for the simplicity and only needing a single dosing head. I use a Kamoer X1 Pro 2 for dosing and a Kamoer SE ATO. They are both affordable and reliable from my experience.

I believe in a large CUC(but also feeding them when needed), dosing live phyto, high flow, minimal to no media use(carbon, gfo, etc), a skimmer, good lighting, not chasing low nutrients, and adding as much bacterial diversity as possible.

I'm a little over 6 months in. I have way too many frags and will prob be upgrading soon.

Another good tank! Although I dont run a skimmer and never have. But clearly many ways to approach this. At the core ato (even upside down bottle) and doser are a must.

 

[GHOSTLY]

ATO and a doser is important imo if you're going SPS dominant. I use All-For-Reef and would recommend it for the simplicity and only needing a single dosing head. I use a Kamoer X1 Pro 2 for dosing and a Kamoer SE ATO. They are both affordable and reliable from my experience.

I believe in a large CUC(but also feeding them when needed), dosing live phyto, high flow, minimal to no media use(carbon, gfo, etc), a skimmer, good lighting, not chasing low nutrients, and adding as much bacterial diversity as possible.

I'm a little over 6 months in. I have way too many frags and will prob be upgrading soon.

Already dosing live phyto! It seems an ato, low alk, and an auto doser are what I need

 

[GHOSTLY]

Also I've been in the hobby less than a year if that helps with any info

 

[jeffww]

This reef is my first true reef tank (previous experience was a 5g dorm tank) so it is doable for a beginner. Rush nothing and be conservative with your coral. Dip everything (I use bayer) and at the beginning test daily for alk. I’ve done all sorts of horrible things to this tank like fluxrx, chemiclean, keeping alk at 11, letting it drop to 5…..all learning processes…although ive had over a decade of planted tank success.

 

[GHOSTLY]

Amazing tanks! Ill keep those tips in mind

 

[GHOSTLY]

New problem emerged. How can I measure how much to dose

 

[Diveks]

New problem emerged. How can I measure how much to dose

you should test how much your tank is depleating

 

[LuizW13]

New problem emerged. How can I measure how much to dose

You have to test Alk everyday to see how much your corals are consuming.

 

[GHOSTLY]

Could I get away with minimum testing as long as I have easy to keep sps