With my new 75, I am looking to keep SPS. Maybe a birds nest or two, some Acros maybe some others. I was wondering if someone could give me the care requirements of Acroporas? Like lighting requirements, supplements, water parameters and other specialty needs of Acros.
My advice would be to start thinking of reef keeping as taking care of the water in your tank. If you keep the parameters in range and have a stable mature tank then it will open up all kinds of opportunities as far as live stock choices.
You can start by dosing two part/three part solutions manually, but in the end you end up spending just as much on chemicals and burning through test kits as you would have on a Calcium reactor & CO2 tank and you’ll never be able to keep the parameters as steady.(In my opinion) The basics to pay attention to pH, Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium.
Acropora can be kept under a wide variety of light schemes. Stay away from Power compacts and do your research before buying. If you are starting from scratch LEDs end up being cheaper over the span then other lighting even if you buy the nicest fixtures. Reason being is they will save you electrical costs and bulb replacements. It’s a big investment up front though, however you can’t beat the cool dimming features, moonlights… there are plenty of waves on that.
Having adequate flow is important for any tank you keep for many reasons.
A good skimmer makes a world of difference. Carbon and phosphate remover help a good bit. Zeovit and probiotics could be considered later, but I wouldn’t experiment with those until you are more experienced and first have a lot of other equipment in place.
I wouldn’t read too much about Acropora, read up on reefkeeping in general. Sprung and Delbeks Reef Aquarium is a good fundamental primer. Something else you can do just for ideas is to look at tanks of the month in reefkeeping magazine and surf around on YouTube for videos of tanks you like and then try to find out specifics on how they maintain their tanks.