Things to avoid for SPS tank

[minsmarine]

After going through so much trouble, I would like to geather anything that I need to avoid to achieve the SPS dominated tank. Based on your bad bad bad experience. (Like mime, were told BiColor Blenny is reef safe and when I got one , this little fellow nip all the SPS tips, till I have no choice but have to shutdown the tank to get him out of my tank and almost all of my SPS is now without tips or skin )

Any contribution would appreciated.

[jd_n]

Reading is one good way of gatherin information.

[moron_clown]

i still think the best sps tank is a a tank without any fishes and inverts....my blue legged hermit keeps toppling my frags so do my super clumsy blue tang when he needs to run away from my sohal....soon my tank will be fishless....

[Tanzy]

Avoid anemones.

Avoid long spine urchins.

Avoid leopard blenny.

[FuEl]

No clown gobies. They may look cute and adorable...but wait till you watch them go pecking around.

[moron_clown]

No clown gobies. They may look cute and adorable...but wait till you watch them go pecking around.

strange,mine does'nt peck....maybe mine's a nice fella...

[RAV-65]

more contributions pls... I'm also tryin very hard to keep SPS...

[surfedelic]

Avoid anemones.

Avoid long spine urchins.

Avoid leopard blenny.

Any particular reasons why we should avoid long spines Urchin ? All along I thought it is good to have long spines urchin to clear up those green and coraline algae. I have a short spine urchin though.

[Tanzy]

They hurt and can scratch SPS.

[Chris]

Avoid all dottybacks. When you have aiptasia and need to add peppermint shrimps to solve the problem, these fierce buggers will exterminate your shrimps faster than they can reach the aiptasias.

Avoid purple Queens. If they don't eat die. If they eat worse, you need to keep feeding till your water go bad and SPS die.

[DeepBlue]

Avoid tangs and angels....

seriously...one poo too much..the other--> you run the risk of it nibbing

that's why most sps reefers keep monster-sized and high running cost skimmers when they keep tangs

[Eric]

Avoid

1)Overdosing of Kalk or Calcium without a proper test kit resulting in ionic imbalance and tissue loss on your sps.

2)Big snails/hermits/lobsters, replace them with other smaller cleaners to prevent topping of sps frags.

3)Placing direct path of your powerhead - tissue loss

4)Touching your sps or moving them after placing them at their comfirm location - will help shorten the colour up time and improve growth

5)Introducing fishes that are not reefsafe or sps safe, best is keep bioload low so as to maintain low nutrients

6)Placing new sps under direct strong lights unless you are very sure where the sps is from previously. Do a proper acclimalising from middle lightings to high lightings and then avoid touching them often as mention on (4). - Do a research on the lights requirment of different sps. eg. monti do not require that strong a light to strive. & also what sps can be placed close together and wat can't.

7)Too much volume during water change - sps very sentitive to water parameters changes

8)Going above 31 degree C - prolong high temp will cause RTN

9)Introducing those unknown crabs that like to hide in your sps colonies - some may feed on your sps

10)Heavy feeding and low flow or low water turnover rate

11)Soft corals as some are known to toxic your sps - No personal experience on tat cos I only keeping LPS and SPS, if have to mix soft and sps, go for 24/7 carbon

12)High nutrients like PO4/NO3 - good for algae no good for sps, will affect colours and growth

p/s: Above are some of the experiences I gain while starting out sps 5mths ago, I'm still not successful in sps but learning more and more each day.

Eric

[d00d]

Great contributions guys!

4)Touching your sps or moving them after placing them at their comfirm location - will help shorten the colour up time and improve growth

Eric, just to point out...I think your point here a bit mixed up hehe What you mean would be to avoid touching the SPS, once they have been placed at a confirm location.

also what sps can be placed close together and wat can't.

You also mentioned this helpful point. Hmmm...may I know where can I find this info. I am searching the web now for some info regarding placement. Would post if I have any helpful findings.

[Eric]

Great contributions guys!

Eric, just to point out...I think your point here a bit mixed up hehe What you mean would be to avoid touching the SPS, once they have been placed at a confirm location.

You also mentioned this helpful point. Hmmm...may I know where can I find this info. I am searching the web now for some info regarding placement. Would post if I have any helpful findings.

I meant after acclimalising them from low to high light area, stick them properly at the high light area and avoid touching them there onwards. The acclimalising process would probably take 2-4 weeks and just swifting them twice at the most.

I learned the hard way with regards to the different sps species placement - eg. Millipora cannot go near the Marulina.

Eric

[strat]

Can any mod make this as a sticky thread?

Got very good info here.

[lightningstrike]

if u r keeping sps and ric floridas in a mixed reef tank, pls remember that both cannot go hand in hand. either one touches each other, u r bound to suffer monetary losses. most likely the ric floridas will melt. i know, coz i hv experience it b4, and each time, the sps survived but the ric melted away.

[AlfaRomeo]

Stability is the name of the game when it comes to SPS. Have learnt that you need excellent stable parameters in order for SPS to show its full potential. Fluctuating parameters like Temp/CA/KH etc etc will lead to very stressed colonies and they will show their displeasure almost instantly.

The following holds true: Nuthing good ever happens overnight but bad things will.

[minsmarine]

Ha I didn't know that lot of ppl will contribute.

Reading help, however experience is experience.

Like my case, I search through b4 I got my bicolor blenny and though 75% safe and take the risk than bye bye to almost all of my SPS tips.

Alot of ppl here said Bicolor Blenny is SPS safe, however just in front of my eyes, he is keep nipping tips like every other minutes ( not once in awhile , eventhough I feed flake, brain, sliver fish ).

And I think reefing is still very new compare to what we have learn, so there are lot of thing we ( the whole world ) doesn't know yet.

Therefore , I believe Experience Talk.

I agree big snail is problem, not only for SPS but also for my anemone. One anemone had no choice but to suside himself to PH cause big snails are keep distrubing him.

So in my expereince, No Big Snail , No Bicolor Blenny.

More contribution Please.

So we could save Ocean. Less Die off mean saving Ocean.