(page 2) Balancing your System

Balancing your System for SPS Corals

The focus on stony coral tanks is to keep nutrients low and maintaining the minerals in the water that allow the some corals to grow their skeletons.

For stony coral systems your focus is the opposite off soft coral tanks, regarding organic nutrients. You want your system to be as organic nutrient poor as possible. That's why we recommend skimming 24 hours a day and feeding your tank rarely if ever. We feed our SPS tanks very lightly. In our system with SPS we have many different types of tangs. I almost exclusively feed them only the green seaweed called Nori. It is that green paper that they wrap your sushi with your sushi roll is wrapped with. Nori green seaweed is easy to purchase off Internet. Fish that are plant eaters (herbivores) love it and this is very nutritional food source. It is dark green, so it contains a tremendous amount of non-polluting nutrients and is a great source of fiber. The best thing about Nori. Check out our Section on Feed Fish. By feeding your SPS system very lightly or using a food that doesn't have many organics you're going to help maintain the balance in your system.

Calcium and alkalinity

There are two primary minerals in the water that are most important. Calcium and Alkalinity. Calcium is an element that is found in limestone and in coral skeletons and also in our bones. Alkalinity derives from the carbonates that are found in the water. Both of these should be replenished continuously your system in order to allow the corals grow and thrive.

Replenish Calcium and Alkalinity with a Calcium Reactor

We found the best way for large tanks to provide these components is by using a calcium reactor for reef tanks. For smaller tanks, you can use a two-part calcium and alkalinity additive instead such as B ionic from ESV Chemicals. We recommend in your system that you maintain a calcium level around 450 parts per million and alkalinity level around 2.8 meq (also known as 9.8° of German hardness). Both of these are slightly higher than natural seawater, but this is advantageous because they can be depleted fairly rapidly.
In a live stony coral (SPS) reef tank, focus primarily on these two, and test for them regularly.

There are also many other minerals and compounds that need to be maintained in an aquarium. The best and easiest way to replenish these is through regular water changes.

Tangs Are the Best Fish for Maintaining Balance

The best fish not only to feed off of any hair algae as it starts to spring up, but also are peaceful tank mates. Good community fish include tangs. These are a good example of a great community fish that has a lot of different jobs that are all positive. Plus they look beautiful. So Tangs are useful in maintaining a well balanced aquariums.

So all ecosystems and all. Niches regards how small or large are constantly undergoing a balanced and rebalanced check them. Its really is a chain and is one machine is infected. Things up and down the chain may or may not be affected sometimes in ways you never predicted since very important to provide the right conditions initially from the beginning and not take shortcuts that later on we'll leave the costly mistakes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we were talking about you providing the conditions for nature to take its course and to rebalance your system in the direction that you want the system to go, and not in the direction that leads to unwanted hair algae You have to pay attention to details, but this website is for you to know what to pay attention to, and to know also what may not be so important and what you can ignore or pay LESS attention to.

We are trying to show you what we think of the most important things in this website in order to maintain a healthy aquarium. we cant give you all the details about everything , but this is a good start, and that's really what the purpose of it. To provide you a good start with your aquarium and hopefully not make the same mistakes, the same EXPENSIVE mistakes, the same COSTLY mistakes that we all have already made. These mistakes cost the lives of your corals and your fish We are hoping that the mistakes we made will serve as an education for you and you can avoid wasting your time your money and most importantly, wasting the wildlife !