Adding new coral

[EyeTrix]

Thanks everyone for such nice responses to my queries! This makes an absolutely incredibly exciting and fun hobby even that much better!

In a previous post, I described my 150 gallon tank as having gone through its cycle (having all the stuff, etc). It has a fair amount of coral, yet there appears to be plenty of space available.

I am getting some conflicting advice again, which I can't seem to find an answer on in my reference books or on the net so far. I know that one has to go fairly slow in adding fish, etc. There is an upper limit to the number of fish in a tank, but what about coral? I have been told that adding coral:

"adds to the bioload"
"reduces the bioload"

I am at my limit of how much coral I should have in a tank.
I can add significant amounts of more coral.

I should only add one or two bits of coral at a time, wait two weeks...
I can add as much coral as I want right away.

I certainly see tanks that are my size or smaller packed to the brim with coral, but this may be because they have taken years http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=15#to harvest and grow.

 

[Angelscrx]

I have seen tanks like Mojos massive tank with just enough corals to give them plenty of room to grow. I like his philosophy let them grow as in the wild and the dominant coral will prevail and give your tank a more natural appearance.

Then I have also seen tanks with so many corals you can't tell where one starts and the next one begins. It is pretty much up to you as to what you want to do with your system. I love corals but I also love to see them grow and expand. So I don't have a lot corals crammed together. You can always add and remove corals if you don't like them.

You also have to take into consideration the growth patterns and how aggressive some corals are! You don't want a tank so full of aggressive corals that all you have is coral wars and dead tissue every where! Proper placement and future growth are important in considering what kind and how many corals you want.

 

[dnjan]

In my opinion, bioload with corals is not nearly as big an issue as maintaining calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. If you have a small number of stoney corals, it may seem like your calcium, etc. is fairly stable. All of a sudden you dump in a number of calcium consumers and whack - you can't maintain calcium, your alkalinity keeps dropping, and when you finally break down and by a magnesium test kit you find that your magnesium level is only 1,100. And then the corals start dieing.

So, my vote is to add corals slowly (it takes a while to thoroughly research a coral as to needed waterflow, lighting, etc. anyway), and make sure your parameters are really stable before adding the next coral.

 

[Angelscrx]

dnjan: you bring up a great point but I have a question about the magnesium. I am getting ready to set up Calcium Reactor and was given magnesium to add to the reactor media to dissolve them together. Now I didn't think about it until now but I have seen CRs without magnesium in them and don't hear about a lot of people dosing magnesium so is it really necessary? Thanks

 

[dnjan]

I don't have experience with calcium reactors or magnesium additions to the CR media, so I can't comment on that.

My best advice is to buy a magnesium test kit, and test occaisionally (every month or two). If it stays stable, then you are adding enough magnesium with your CR plus water changes. If it starts dropping, come up with some way to supplement magnesium soon. It takes a lot of magnesium supplement to raise magnesium much.

You might want to get Mike (mojo) to talk about magnesium depletion. He went for a while with little or no water changes, relying on his CR to keep things up. By the time the magnesium depletion got bad enough to really screw up his alk and Ca, he needed many gallons of magnesium supplement. I believe he is doing more water changing now, but he could also tell you if he is adding any special magnesium stuff to his CR.

 

[Angelscrx]

Thanks I will have to see if I can get a test kit locally. I do water changes about once a month now that the tank has aged and my water quality is stable I may be ok then. Thanks