SPS help...What all do need?

Well I am in the process of turning my tank into an sps tank. I used to have a very LPS and softy dominated tank but unfortunately I was one of those hit by the kent reef carbon recall. I pretty much lost all my corals and inverts and thus am starting over. Luckily, Kent has been extremely helpful and has given me a very reasonable settlement. With the money I have recieved I am wanting to purchase the equipment I need to take my tank to the next level and dive into the world of SPS.

I am relatively new to SPS as I only had a few things like birdsnest in the past so I am seeking advice on what purchases I should make.

Basic info about my tank: I have a 180 gal tank but total volume with basement sumps and refugium is about 400 gal. I have over 200 pounds of Fiji live rock. As far as equipment I have 3 large korlalia power heads and a SCWD diverter on the return pump. I also have a large SWC skimmer and a nova extreme t5 lighting system. It has twelve 39W bulbs so over 400 watts of light. I also have two XP canister filters that I use for GFO and carbon along with increased water circulation. I also have a new reef octopus biopellet reactor.

I am looking at buying 2 ecotech mp40s and a battery backup to get better motion and current in the tank. I am also going to purchase an Apex controller plus an XWM expansion controller to run the mp40s with the apex.

After that I am not sure what other equipment would be best. I thought about a calcium reactor but not sure how vital they are, thought about LEDs but I figure I just ordered new lights for the t5 and I could get a lot of other things needed that may be more important than spending all the money on an led setup.

Again I am just wanting to do this right the first time and get everything I need before I dive in. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Good plan so far. Your lights and flow should be fine. Your filtration is good also. You will spend less energy with a Ca reactor. I will do the main dosing of Ca, Alk and Mg. You may need to spot dose to keep your params where you want them but it should not be often.

 

With the equipment you already own you could have a successful sps tank. If you have extra money you want to get better equipment for sps then look at

Ecotechs vortechs are amazing pumps and worth every penny. That said you can achieve similar results hooking up a wavemaker or something like that.

SPS loves high flow. I have about 70x turnover in my tank and the sps loves it.

wow 12 t5 bulbs you would easily pay for your led setup over two bulb changes.(think future savings). and reduced energy consumption.

Calcium reactor is a solid choice for reliability, but some people also swear by dosing pumps. both have their ups and downs, do your research into the two and see which would serve you better.
One more thing i will recommend you to look at is a controller. Consistency will be your best friend in a sps setup. so constant monitoring of ph, temp, hooking all your equipment up to run on a system will aid in your sps tank a huge amount.

 

Yeah I have pretty much decided that I definetly wanna go the route of an apex controller and 2 mp40s. I also want to get the Neptune XWM controller for the vortechs to run on the apex.

Yeah t5s cost about $225 to replace and led lights are definetly appealing but I looked at lights like the vortech radion and the maxsPect mazarra but by the time I buy 3 or 4 fixtures (which is what I guess I would need for a 6 ft tank) I would have to spend about $2,000 just on the lights. So I definetly think they would be awesome I just don't know if my money is better served elsewhere.

Again I appreciate all the input.

 

Also I should add. In the past I have done all my dosing by hand and want more hands free function and that's why I thought maybe a calcium reactor would be wise.....although a dosing pump system would work as well. I just thought calcium reactors would be more consistent and hands free, but I don't know.

 

i would wait until you get your sps corals going before you get a ca reactor. I think you can easily dose for a long time manually very easily. When you first start out (depending on the size and amount of SPS) the calcium load is going to be much lower. So use that money and get the other stuff you want and then maybe year or two later

 

You could have 3 x TapTronics LED's, for about 450$.
You'd need 3, the 2 I have on my 125 are doing awesome.

HOw many sps are you going to start with?
I have 7 sps, 20 different corals total, (LPS,Softs, sps),
and don't dose anything.
My corals are thriving.
FWIW

 

I am wanting to start out small with for or five colonies and then a few LPS as well. I wanna make sure I can do well those before I start buying to many. As far as LEDs I haven't heard of taptronics...I will have to look into them.

 

That's great advice....thanks!

 

I meant to say TaoTronics.

They now have a dimmable model to dim the blues and white seperately.
Mine are the non models- and I still love them.

There are lots of threads/reviews on them.
Best bang for the buck. Affordable LED's.