question for equiptment needed for keeping sps.

[Robgixxer]

i have a 150 gallon setup. fairly new. in the future i want to do alot with corals and some clams. i definitely have the lighting i need already. but was curious about reactors kalk stirrers and what not. what would be a list of equiptment that i would need to have to keep such things in my tank. do you use both a CA reactor and a kalk stirrer or one or the other. what works for you? or what do you thing would work for me?

[kgross]

Talk about a loaded question.

What you need. Tank, water, light and water movement devices. Anything else just makes it easier for you. Kalk stirrers are nice since they help keep the ph up and are very affordable to operate. CA reactors are great since with lots of SPS corals and clams a kalk stirrer might not be able to keep up with the calcium/alk demand. But non of them are needed, you can add suppliments daily. Or just do lots of water changed to keep water quality up and ca/alk levels ok.

With that said if are doing soft corals with a few LPS you don't need much other than a good skimmer as well as the water movement. If you want lots of SPS corals I would suggest a CA reactor and if possible a kalk reactor also. If you are doing quite a few LPS corals and clams the Kalk might keep up with the CA demand so you would not need the ca reactor.

Kim

[Shawn D]

a good skimmer is a great investment for the well being of your tank

[Robgixxer]

well at the moment i have a kent nautilus te with a mag 9.5 pushing it. it is skimming quite well for now. but at the moment i have only these things in my tank

2 Ocellaris Clowns
1 Blue Tang
1 Coral Beauty
1 Lemonpeel
2 4 Stripe Damsels
1 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Rail Way Goby
1 Crocea Clam
1 Ritteri Anemone
1 Goniopora Coral
30 Blue Legged Hermits
20 Turbo Snails
2 Sandsifting Stars

But i definitely plan on doing more corals and clams.

[AZDesertRat]

The single largest ingredient in your tank by far is water so water quality is your number one concern. Everything else revolves around it and depends on it. A good RO/DI unit would be my number one investment.

[Shawn D]

I definitely agree with AZDesertRat I ran my tank for a year off of tap water and when I switched to RO/DI what a huge difference it pretty much eliminated all my algae

[Robgixxer]

I have a 75 GPD RO/DI been running it on this tank since day one. got it from purely h20. with a built in pressure gauge, tds meter, and auto shut off, and a float valve for 210 shipped. it is all setup to top off my tank automatically.

[AZDesertRat]

Good move!