SPS question
 

I just bought these 2 SPS and I've heard that they like lots of light and high flow so I assume I would need to place them at the top of my tank. I have torches, frogspawn, hammer (branch and wall), long tentacle anenome, bubble tip anenome, candy cane and zoas in my tank. Which one is considered safe if I place the SPS close to it? Which one is not?
Also, I am using a 4 bulbs T5 as lighting for my tank. Would that be sufficient or do I have to upgrade to 6 or 8 bulbs?
Thank you all for your input.
http://s217.photobucket.com/albums/c...rrent=SPS1.jpg
http://s217.photobucket.com/albums/c...rrent=SPS2.jpg

The zoas would be least likely to sting it, however they can encroach on it as they grow and proliferate. The rest of them may produce sweeper tentacles and sting it from quite a distance (sometimes 6-8"). For the most part the zoas shouldn't bother SPS at all though, they'll just grow around it. Both of those need quite a bit of light, you could just try it for awhile at the top of your tank and see how it goes, then upgrade later if you don't find they're the colors you like or they've faded. Nice pieces! I hope they hold their color for you :)

You should move the one up off the sandbed

Thanks Christy. I was "fighting" with my friend in the store to see who gets what. I guess when it comes to corals, there are no such thing called friendship :mrgreen:
Thanks spawn, it has been moved to the top.

LOL, nope! Its every man for himself!! :razz:

You'll need to keep that blue one up high too to retain that vibrant color.

a 4 bulb t5 may be ok, but if your gonna start getting into sps then I would want more light.....both of those will need to be up high.....and the second coral (acropora abrotanoides) can be quite a challenging coral (at least it was for me)

I'll second Doug's comments on that, mine just doesn't want to color up. I'm hoping for more out of mine, time will tell.

well your a better man than I:mrgreen:........I would have been happy to have mine just not color up....Ive tried two colonies and Ive lost two colonies.....I just didnt seem to have what it needed:neutral:

Doug, I had metal halide before but decided to switch over to T5 since I only had LPS and soft corals in my tank before. I was only interested in things that move, hence all the anenomes, torches, etc in my tank. I guess I'll see how these two guinea pigs go then I'll see if I need to upgrade or just switch back to MH. It could be another expensive addiction on its way :razz:Hopefully, by that time, LED would come down in price enough as well.

Mine's still pretty new. I may join you in the loss department soon enough :)

Mine's already branching... you guys need more nutrients lol =)

Of course the frags are ALL branching because they know I'm sorta screwed for space on my racks. Go figure...

More nutrients?? How?? What do you use?

To be fair, mine is a recent frag, and so far is still in good shape. Just not the color I'd like it to be.

As for nutrients, I feed my fish a lot, so I'm sure I've got lots of "nutrients" :)

Lol I'm just joking.

It's Murphy's Law coral edition. I have no space so they wanna grow. If they had space they'd likely STN on me :biggrin:

Very nice piece you have there!

Ya, Murphy and SPS go hand in hand...

Brad,

We got this the same time... this is still in my tank

http://i406.photobucket.com/albums/p...s/IMG_0063.jpg



but not for long as it is going to its rightful owner this weekend.

Wayne, mine looks like that, just not any pink hues to it yet...

I definitely think it has potential... thinking about keeping it for myself:lol:
Has only been four weeks... sure it will colour up nicely before the end of 2011.

Ya, we'll see. It's still in the rack, so I can't expect much. I'm out of room, so it makes it tough :) Especially since I just bought a couple more colonies.

I will third this notion. I owned one (maricultured colony) for a year before it coloured up. It was beautiful green with pink tips for about 4 months and then went down hill again. Tried this coral a second time and it STNd on the base. I now have 4 medicore frags of this guy.

This is par for the course on this difficult SPS. Read about the same experience from tons of SPS geeks.

I wouldnt be so confident with the abrotinoides stag....:twised:

Thanks for the heads up. I'll let the owner of this frag know. This way, he won't be frustrated should the frag goes south on him.:neutral:

A few have got them to stick but it is definitely one of the more difficult SPS to keep.