Heathd

Without poo producing organisms its gonna be hard to keep a SPS tank. The poo feeds the SPS, I'm sure there are other ways around this but I wouldn't want to try it. As for the bottom and it being scratched up you could use the white cutting boards for a bottom. I personally hate the look of a bare bottom but understand why some want it.

As for the skimmer why? If you have no poo producing organisms, then in theory you have no protein to skim off.

Also before you drill make sure the glass your drilling isn't tempered or you'll end up shattering it.

I already know that the glass isnt tempered.

And I thought sps needed extremely clean water, so I thought no fish and a skimmer would achieve that. Guess I am misinformed.

And I dont want a barebottom tank. I was just asking since people have said its the best way to go in a sps dominant tank.

SPS do require a "cleaner" enviroment than other corals but still need the poo to grow along with good lights. Thats what makes keeping the SPS so challanging its balancing the amount of bad with the good. SPS love A LOT of flow, and some go with the bare bottom so they don't get sand storms.

I have crushed coral in my tank (mixture of LPS, SPS and zoa's) I have the flow needed without the sandstorms.

In my tank personally I try to keep Nitrates below .05ppm, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Alk 11 ppm, Cal 450 and Mg 1300. I know the Nitrates are a little high but I feel that stability is the key. On my bi-weekly checks I usually don't see any major fluctuations. I don't dose anything as well, the simpler the better IMO. I have good growth on all the corals but I can't keep a birdsnest alive for more than a month or so. Again I know it due to the high Nitrates, but if I get them down then the Zoa's don't do well.

I could be wrong on the no fish thing, I'm hoping others will join in as well.

Thats the whole reason why I want to go strictly SPS on this tank. I have mainly softies in my other tank, and while I could make the changes neccesary to grow sps in it, it would be at the cost of my dirty water loving zoas and softies.

i dont think fish contribute as much needed nutrients as thought(most coral farmers dont have fish in grow out systems), thats why you feed your corals. my filtration on my tank is a skimmer and bio pellets and a phosphate removing media. my nitrates stay very low. as for coral i keep a mix of everything, softies of all kinds, sps of all kinds also, acros, montis,caps, digis, milis, birdnest and have no problems. i do 10g water change every two weeks, as for dosing i use esv two part and mag, also trace emlements. feeding for coral ranges from coral frenzy and fuel(amino acids) which is dosed one each day and cyclops . lighting and water flow are the other big things needed. any other question feel free to send me a message, you can see my tank/tanks in my blogs.

Every place I've been to that has coral grow out tanks have fish in them, never seen one that doesn't. I even believe Marc has stated that that the fish poo helps the corals. I've never fed my corals specifically either & some SPS are growing at almost a inch a month. I hope someone who has a COLR (coral only live rock?) chimes in, I would be very interested in how it works.

here some good reading on coloring of sps http://reefbuilders.com/2008/09/03/g...-vivid-bright/

Yes, I have. I've seen green house systems with corals-only that ended up being very pale, but once the owner added some yellow tangs to the system, the corals' colors enriched. I wouldn't go fallow (fish-free) with SPS; perhaps you can do like Jessy plans and add a bunch of tiny fish. EXCEPT the yellow clown goby - that one will chew up your SPS polyps for sure. I named mine Fang for a reason, and after a while I couldn't take it and siphoned him out of my tank.

You can still use the AquaC Remora or the CPR Bakpak II (or whatever CPR makes nowadays) to skim your tank. I see that company every year with new HOB skimmers, but I need to make the time to determine what they are named, I guess. The Aqua C Remora is a good skimmer if the injector is kept clean. I had one on my 29g and never regretted it.

Thanks for the reading, very interesting on the colors. Gonna have to try some of that and see what happens.

Good stuff in here. Thanks to everyone for their help.