Decided to go SPS dominant.....oh god

So lately I have been cruising around reefcentral.com and wow all of the beautiful SPS tanks have made me want to make my tank SPS dominant. I know that SPS are the toughest corals to keep but I pay close attention to my tank and I think I can do it. For lighting I have 2x250 watt metal halides so that should be suficient. For flow I have 2 seio 620 powerheads and my return pushes about 400gph and I plan to get a k4 soon. I need to get test kits for calcium, alk, and mag so I'll get those first. I plan to dose 2 part with a dosing pump. Anything else I will need besides luck?

 

buuummmpppp

 

Patience lol

 

Phosphate reactor

It is cheap insurance.

 

Should I have one even if I have a refugium?

 

l wouldn't worry about the phosphate reactor, especially if you have a sump with macro algae (refugium). I would start with some easier sps, birdsnests, montis, green slimer etc. See how they do, they had more, maybe rarer corals.

 

Yup, Birdsnest and a monti cap are the first SPS I'm going to try.

 

Usually test kits don't go into low enough range to get a good read on your PO4. You can buy low range PO4 test kits, but it may not really be necessary. Once you get a bunch of SPS you may want to get one to take a peek at what the PO4 really is as your refuguim may or not me doing as much as you think it is.. There's plenty of factors that will affect PO4 it like refugium bulbs, size of macro, how much macro growth your getting ect.
PO4 should be at or below .03.. and you won't be able to measure that with an API test kit.
If it's much above that I would look into other PO4 export methods like a GFO reactor.
I run an algae scrubber and GFO together and mine is .02-03 measured with my photometer.

I kind of ignored Phosphate for the last year since it read 0 on my old API test cards. Now that I've gotten more aggressive about Phosphate I've noticed a lot more color and polyp extension.
Iron Oxide Hydroxide (GFO) Phosphate Binders by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

I applaud your effort to start taking on sps. Be sure to keep us posted with plenty of pics.

 

I have a massive refugium and still need one. I do however feed heavily (athnias).