Sps

[Crazy fishes]

Has anyone tried to keep SPS frags, like acropora, montipora etc, in a standard 24g D&D nano cube?

Regards

 

[steelhealr]

Nearly impossible as the lighting requirement is very high...unless you have halides. You might get away with a montipora cap. SH

 

[Dorkhedeos]

how many watts would you need anyways?

 

[nanocubeking]

5 to 6 watts per gallon. Or a 150 watt light.

 

[SkiFletch]

And as much trouble as lighting is, most "SPS" corals are very demanding when it comes to chemistry and flow. Both of which are difficult to properly create in a nano tank.

 

[Lynden]

High quality T-5's can work. Also the watt per gallon recommendation is useless; a 175/150 watt halide can cover a 2' cube very well, but anything beyond this will be in partial shade.

 

[Musho3210]

if your using a concentrated light like MH, a 70 should be fine, but that probably means you should only keep easy to care for more brown types of SPS that are nearly directly under the light. I would follow lyndens advice, high quality t5's or at least 150 watt MH if you want a good variety.

 

[Lynden]

The main reason I don't keep SPS (and may never keep the more delicate types) is not the lighting but the chemistry needed. I do not find constant monitoring, dosing and water changes very appealing. This may change in time as I get more $$$ and advanced equipment when that application finally goes through.

 

[Adrinal]

I will echo and agree, chemestry, specificaly keeping alk and calcium ballanced is tough on a small system. Bi weekly waterchanges are cheep on a system this size though and can off set the amount of management you need to do. Automated Kalk top off should do you... but automated so you arn't changing the chem values all the time.... you see this being an expensive tank already don't you
Water flow... key.

Absolutly go bare bottom in a nano sps tank (though I always use black acrylic on the bottom). This is the only way you can cover the other issue the guys are mentioning: Flow. A pair of Tunze nanos work great in this situation.

Live rock
high flow
auto kalk top off
1 150W MH
heater
blessing from Heaven
something to feed (my preference cleaner shrimp and brittle stars, but tons of options out there).
frequent waterchanges

should be all you need ;p