Going from LPS dominant to Mixed reef

[ThatAquariumKid]

What steps would i need to take to go from an LPS dominant tank, to a mixed reef. i would like to add some across and montiporas. is there anything i need to know. thanks

[alton]

Make sure you have plenty of light, make sure your nitrates are below 5ppm, make sure your corals are seperated, some do not play nice. Also make sure if you have types of LPS that put out there stingers at night, there is even more room for your SPS. Make sure you buy frags from your reef club unless you have a good LFS that sells encrusted frags. We are lucky here in south Texas because there are a number of stores that sell cheap frags including GC Reef from Corpus Christi.

[Palting]

Lights, flow and nutrient levels are the major things that distinguish the needs between SPS and LPS.

SPS need more light, and are usually sitting highest up on the rockscape. What kind lof lights, rockscape, and tank diimensions do you have?

Most acros are photosynthetic, that's why they need a lot of light, and require little else in the form of nutrients. In fact, they don't like high nutrient water. Make sure you have a good skimmer, and preferably have your nitrate at zero.

Acros, montis, SPS in general, they all like more flow than softies/LPS. We are talking usually 30X-50X tank volume.

Making your tank more SPS ( acro, monti, etc) friendly makes it less LPS/softie friendly. You have to find the happy medium. That's the challenge of a mixed reef tank.

[coralsnaked]

I niormally suggest running adequate amounts of carbon in a mixed tank. The precense of stinging LPS near softies will cause the softies to emit oils (chemical warefare) to keep the LPS at bay. This can stunt growth of the LPS or even kill it in some cases. Carbon helps to eliminate this problem as it absorbs the oils. Keeping your LPS well fed will keep them from emiting their long sweeper tenacles, thus calming the softies and their oil emissions. Neither are much concerned wih SPS presense. Normally if they are set far apart and allowed to grow in harmony they will accept one another to a better degree. I have found that a combination of carbon and purigen keeps your tank pretty clean. However combined with a skimmer which is needed for sps corals you will be skimming out everything the LPS and softies thrive on. So target feed the LPS and feed the softies a phyto product. Addition of iodine for the sps will be needed and remember unless it is a time released product, the skimmer can pull all iodine out of tank in as short a time as a couple of hours. So when you add an iodine product turn your skimmer off for two hours to give the SPS time to absorb the iodine. When you target feed your LPS and I suggust myusis shrimp to each polyp with a baster keep your circulation pumps off for a short period of time to give the LPS time to wrap up the shrimp. Be sure to monitor alkalitity, calcium and add all other trace elements weekly in a heavy loaded tank or monthly in a light loaded tank.