sps suppliments do i need them.Newbie question

[hixy]

Hello folks my reef tank has been running for 5 months now and all my soft corals are doing really well.Had my water tested at LFS and everything is fine.I have just bought some branching and plating montapora.Do i need to buy some suppliments just in case.My tank is a 130 litre with a 70 litrs sump.Im running a BM q3 skimmer a phosphate reactor and water movement is from the 2000 ltr jaboe return and 2 rw 4 wavemakers.

Water changes are a 3rd twice a month.The salt is aquaforest probiotic.

A little about me im 47 been keeping fish for years but this is my first reef.

cheers

 

[CodyRVA]

The short answer is no you don't. I always tell people fish poop is the best suppliment for SPS. I wouldn't get hung up on suppliments, you should focus your attention more on your chemistry, stability, lighting, flow, etc. These elements are going to have a much larger impact on the success of your SPS corals than supplementation. The next time you have your LFS test your water, ask them for the numbers; assuming you aren't planning on testing your water yourself (I recommend you do), this way you can track your parameters yourself. Stability is king.

 

[hixy]

hello thanks for the reply my test results were

s/g 1.025
ph 8.2
nh4 0
no2 0
no3 20
kh 9.3
po4 0.1
ca 490
mg 1380

That was 2 weeks ago since then i have been running a phosphate reactor.I do have test kits i will do them tomorrow.The light im using is a hydra 52

 

[Fenzinna]

hello thanks for the reply my test results were

s/g 1.025
ph 8.2
nh4 0
no2 0
no3 20
kh 9.3
po4 0.1
ca 490
mg 1380

That was 2 weeks ago since then i have been running a phosphate reactor.I do have test kits i will do them tomorrow.The light im using is a hydra 52

Honestly, everything looks good. What I would do, is simply focus on alk for now on and let everything else run it's course.

Do you dose Kalk in your top off or are you running any two part dosing? Those two things you'll need to monitor but with only two sps your tanks usage will be low. Just try and keep your Alk and Calc consistent. I've found that my sps react best with nutrients in the water, so I've been aiming for 10ppm no3 and .04-.08 po4.

Work on keeping your alk and calcium stable. Doesn't need to be dot on every day. but within the same .2-3 range is acceptable by most standard. After that you can focus on the other stuff.

Edit: I personally only test my ALK once a week because I have a general idea of how my tank works based on my feeding schedule. If my Alk starts to rise, I know my other nutrients are getting out of wack.

 

[hixy]

Would it be worth adding kalkwasser to my auto top up water as a precaution or should I monitor it and see how it goes.

 

[SeaDweller]

Would it be worth adding kalkwasser to my auto top up water as a precaution or should I monitor it and see how it goes.

Kalk is a great option but there have been stories of people's ATO failing and dumping a ton of kalk in, thus crashing a tank.

Dripping kalk would be better.

I don't agree that you don't need supplements but it can be done if you're on top of water changes. However it gets to a point where your corals are growing and are consuming too much (I.e. Carbonate and calcium) from the water and water changes can't keep up, so yes you have to supplement those elements and magnesium at the very least. All very easy and cheap to do. Google two part reef supplement and find the article from Randy.

Thorough instructions on how to dose to maintain proper levels for hard coral. For alk I use baking soda and for calcium I use pool supply 99% CaCl. However this week I'm setting up a calcium reactor because dosing 300 mls of each solution doesn't seem to be enough for my tank anymore.

Fish poop does provide coral with the proper N and P they need.