Maxed out sps tank..

[Bob 1000]

Alot of people say that it is okay to put Sps in a tank until they are almost touching each other.. Weather it be a tanks numbers, or species....
Chemical reactions for different water qualities and coral types must vary a little:frown:, I think.. Some people are able to max a tank out, and have no ill effects for a long time.. While others tanks have a harder time trying to keep Sps living not thriving ..
What are some of the opinions of the people here that have had success with sps dominated systems and crashes??

Just trying to get an idea of what's too many and what's a good amount of Sps in a Sps dominated system, that would last longer than 10 years or even 5, from people that have had these type of reefs...
What are the opinions on how many types of Sps and numbers that can be successfully kept???

Not really looking for #'s to inches in the tank, but numbers from experience longer than 2 or 3 years... Sometimes this varies from one tank to the next..
Water quality in different areas are different... I think lol...

 

[jackson6745]

Bob, Twinreef's tank was probably the most packed tank I have seen (180gal) He had all kinds of SPS growing into the glass, overflow box, and each other.......living in harmony.

IMO you will not loose an SPS due to chemical warfare from too many corals, you will lose your tank from a parameter disaster like temp extreme etc, power outage (no backup), or from a tank that collects nutrients over time and "crashes". Just to clarify I believe a crash is not some mysterious event but rather a lapse in husbandry.

 

[prattreef]

IMO you will not loose an SPS due to chemical warfare from too many corals, you will lose your tank from a parameter disaster like temp extreme etc, power outage (no backup), or from a tank that collects nutrients over time and "crashes". Just to clarify I believe a crash is not some mysterious event but rather a lapse in husbandry.

I agree.

 

[Bob 1000]

I agree good husbandry plays a part that sometimes becomes a burden...

 

[HaloStalker]

lmao don't scare me, u know i will be getting sps in my 28 nano:skull:.

 

[Bob 1000]

And it will be a process... A really serious process...lol

 

[jhale]

reef tanks are always changing, colonies grow, and as they do some will die while others will prosper. as they grow the dynamics of the tank will change, more flow may need to be added, lights might have to be adjusted.
It's never a finite process, you have to be able to see the signs when the tank needs help.

As for how much coral you can stuff into a tank, that's an open ended question. Some will not be bothered too much by touching each other, while others will go to war till there is a looser. If you want to be safe and plan for the future give your frags a good 6" diameter circle of space. not too many people do this, but if you can be patient for a couple of years you could have a kick ass SPS tank.

 

[Bob 1000]

Sounds good... Sounds like rules to live by for Sps dominated tanks.. Thanks for the words of wisdom...

 

[Bob 1000]

By the way when are you gonna stop by and take a sps staten island pic...lol

 

[Tim]

My tank is now overgrown with sps and now compeating with each other. They touch and it seem`s that the stronger of the two wins and encrust over the other with no I`ll effect`s on either coral( just the loser of the two not growing in that direction anymore)

 

[House of Laughter]

Lee Goldman spoke on this in a husbandry seminar at MACNA Pittsburg.

here is an excerpt from his presentation at MACNA

It has generally been accepted, based on years of anecdotal observations and a few published scientific papers, that physical interaction between corals will usually have a negative effect on growth rates for both species. This experiment was designed, however, employing two species of corals that use overtopping as a competitive mechanism. Because growth rate is an important function of successfully overtopping a neighbor, I hypothesized that growth rates would be maximized in the presence of a competitor. Even the most seasoned coral grower may surprise by these results!

It's not known EXACTY which corals will overtop which, but I had a long discussion with him at dinner time about the series of corals I have bene growing and how I am getting them to grow faster but observing whch grow fastest cloeset to which.

Rich is right - husbandry is king - with an experiment like this, the husbandry MUST be 100% exactly how it is when you move one coral to the side of another in determining which grow closest to which.

Another finding we discussed is how the surface of the water will also alter certain scleractinians growth patterns - I have a blue fuzzy from ORA that is about 4" round with multi branchs now and it started to grow laterally and is about 1.5" from the surface - on the other hand, I have seen nana's begin to table at the surface laying a flat skeleton that connects to each adjoining branches and is often out of the water.

So, I guess what I am saying is that there are people out there actually experimenting with this as a technique for coral farming.

House

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

In short run, I have seen how one SPS dissolve part of its neighbor during night(VERY FAST-LITERALLY ON CONTACT) but it does not actually kill the whole colony. Not sure the stuff that the aggressor spill out will actually crash a system in the long run.

 

[fritz]

monti caps are a documented coral that will use the "outgrow" approach to out competing a nearby colony. GARF has a few pages, if you can find them, documenting their "grow out" process with caps using their built in "outgrow" response.

 

[JBNY]

I little bit late into this thread. But I found you can really pack SPS into a system if you want. After a while you will have tow issue you need to overcome. Flow and fragging. Flow will be come an issue because the corals will start to choke off water flow to other sections of the tank, and you will end up with powerhead all over the place just to get good flow to certain areas of the tank. The other is fragging. You will be fragging all the time. Like every 2-3 weeks. I mean a lot of time fragging, on my tank it got to the point that really didn't enjoy the tank as much when it was packed as it required me to always be fragging coral. Then of course your tank is so full you can't trade coral anymore because your tank has zero room.
IME almost all acroporids and many montis can live together. You just need to keep up with it.