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dougandtito 
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 Topic: The next step: corals
Posted: January 20 2015 at 8:57pm |
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OK. So we've been slowly adding life for a couple of weeks now, and all signs point to a healthy, happy tank. So now we're wondering what the timeline looks like for adding our first corals. What are the telltale signs a tank is ready for corals? What is necessary for healthy, happy, productive corals, and what should we be careful of? What's the best way to start--what corals are easiest to start with, do you add corals slowly, one species at a time, the way you do with other life? What are your tips for starting to build a reef?
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Marcoss
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Posted: January 20 2015 at 9:38pm |
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Hey
I'm curious too and will follow! I just added fish a week ago and a cheap coral to see if it lives :)
Marcos
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RedSea Max S400 - 90G Rimless Frag Tanks x2 - 185 Lookdown Bin
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LaRue
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Posted: January 21 2015 at 5:49am |
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Zoa's sofies and LPS are the easiest starting point as they can usually handle the fluctuations of a new tank allot better than sps can once all of your levels are staying very consistent you can start looking at doing stonies. And corals you can add as fast as your wallet allows just make sure you are doing your water test and are keeping your levels where they need to be.
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 21 2015 at 6:47am |
I agree with LaRue, in fact, I do soft coral before fish because they are easier/more forgiving. Fish can easily get sick and die in any tank, new or old, but coral live on and on.
Also, Coral filter the water - Fish pollute the water
Among the hardiest soft coral are: Mushrooms Cabbage coral Gorgonians(the photosynthetic variety) Briarium and Green Star Polyps branching tree-like corals like Sinularia and Kenya Tree Anthellia such as clove polyps and woods polyps Sarcophyton, commonly called Toadstool Leather, Umbrella Leather and Mushroom Leather
Being the hardiest also makes these soft coral the least expensive for their size, yet they are very attractive. Soft coral include most of the coral that we see moving back and forth in the current. Zoanthids are also classed as soft coral because they do not build a distinct hard stony skeleton.
The hardiest LPS(Large Polyp Stony) coral, such as Frogspawn, build a stony skeleton and are more sensitive than the soft coral mentioned above.
Aloha,
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dougandtito
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Posted: January 21 2015 at 6:59am |
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Awesome advice! Thanks everyone! Which levels are most important to be testing for corals? Up to this point, I have been testing ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates as we've made our way through our cycle, but those levels haven't changed in forever. Which levels are most important to keep an eye on for corals?
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 21 2015 at 8:04am |
Coral are really only mostly affected by Nitrate so when I was where you are, I did Nitrate only(not Ammonia or Nitrite) for my first year in the hobby. That is, until I got tired of it because like you, I was always getting good numbers. I figured that since Nitrate was the final step in the N Cycle, just testing for Nitrate would be sufficient, and it was. 
Eventually I learned that Coral appearance and behavior are like the Canary in the mine. They will quickly indicate, by shrinking up, when something is not quite right. When they are happy again, they will expand. (Though some daily shrinking or occasional shrinking and expanding is actually part of their biological process. It's one of their methods for expelling waste and then taking clean water back in.)
The big four that I check regularly in the coral farm are: Temperature (checked daily by touch or by a glance at the stick-on thermometer) Salinity (constantly sending salt water away with coral frags) Alkalinity (Alk ~ weekly) Calcium (Ca ~ bi-weekly)
Less often, these parameters are checked: Magnesium (Mg ~ every 2 months) Phosphate (PO4 ~ tested occasionally, though I have three very good, very easy visual indicators that serve me well at a glance)
I know this is a lot to learn about, but not to worry, this forum is always here. Aloha  |
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Molli
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Posted: January 21 2015 at 9:11am |
If it were me I'd look at a whole lot of youtube videos and local tanks to try to decide what kinds of corals I like best. Then build my tank accordingly. Different corals have different lighting and water movement requirements -- although if the tank is large enough and depending upon how you place your rock you can keep all kinds of corals happy in your tank. One thing to warn you about, though, is that if you purchase a lot of softies, many of them will start spreading all over your rock. If the time comes that you want to try other kinds of corals you may have to sell some of the rock in your tank to make room for the LPS or SPS corals. Also, although some softies will grow like a weed and thus are easy to care for -- they literally do grow like a weed and you may see them popping up ALL over your tank over time and they can become a real nuisance for some people. Read up on them.
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