being new to corals i am wondering which types would be a good starter. iam also wondering about when i can add them. my tank is just passed the cycling stage. also are they the same as fish with acclimation? one more question. when would be a good time to start adding a calcium supplement?
starting corals
- Thread starter sryder
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bradreef
always kidding
sryder. I dont think you can kill mushrooms. you can probably have those in during the cycle. Mike is giving you the right answer though.
You can add "easy" corals in a month or so, but the real question is should you? The "easy" corals may not be what you want in your tank long term, and corals can be hard to get red if if you don't want them later. Especially the "easy" ones. The most important thing that makes a coral easy is its hardiness, and that same hardiness can make it difficult to remove later. Take, for example, mushrooms. As was previously mentioned, they could probably survive cycling. But they spread. And can kill other corals. So putting them in when a tank is young may mean you are stuck with them for the life of the tank.
Decide now what you want your tank to look like in two years. Identify the animals, and research their needs. Eliminate any obvious incompatabilities (hard to have non-photosynthetic corals in a pristine SPS tank, etc.). Then determine the easiest of those animals, and start with that one. You will be much happier in the long run.
Decide now what you want your tank to look like in two years. Identify the animals, and research their needs. Eliminate any obvious incompatabilities (hard to have non-photosynthetic corals in a pristine SPS tank, etc.). Then determine the easiest of those animals, and start with that one. You will be much happier in the long run.
I dont know Don. Researching and having an end goal is always a good thing, but I still have rocks from taks that had soft corals on them and dont have them now. Corals such as mushrooms, encrusting gorg and zoo's that are all hardy and spread like crasy.
MIke
MIke
Some soft corals are easier to get rid of than others. Have you had any luck getting rid of xenias? (other than sterilizing the rock?) But mushrooms (especially ricordia yuma) IMO are the worst. Mean SOB's that don't understand the phrase "get back"!
i want my tank to look like mikes in two years....lol can i borrow some frags. im looking for something to help keep the kids interest as i progress through some of these stages. as of now the tank is pretty boring to them and they dont understand yet why i sit and look at my live rock. i also do not want to put anything in to early, especially if its going to be detrimental to the future of the tank. i also saw in another post, the lazy mans way to reef keeping and the best solution i came up with is to teach my children how to take care of a reef....lol until then your replies will be greatly appreciated....thanx
steve
steve
Yea if your trying to keep the interest of the kids, Shrimp are cool. If you have a SB then a goby/shrimp combo are always entertaining. Try to get them to feed the tank or the fish directly, my kids still love to do that.
You have a month or so anyway so do a little reseach on softies and possibly some LPS for the early days
Mike
You have a month or so anyway so do a little reseach on softies and possibly some LPS for the early days
Mike
Could you tell us more about your tank? ie size, lights, amount of live rock, substrate type and depth, ect....most of these will have an impact on what you can or cannot keep...
Depending on your lights and the long term goals of your tank, there are many LPS corals out there that are well suited for beginners, like the bubble coral...one advantage LPS like these would have is that they simply don't spread like softies, they generally are much easier to "contain" so to speak...
MikeS
Depending on your lights and the long term goals of your tank, there are many LPS corals out there that are well suited for beginners, like the bubble coral...one advantage LPS like these would have is that they simply don't spread like softies, they generally are much easier to "contain" so to speak...
MikeS
i have a 140 gallon oceanic plumbed with a thirty gallon sump. i have a berlin classic protien skimmer in the sump. its retuned with a little giant 875 gph pump. it also feeds the skimmer. i have a coralife pro light fixture with two 150 watt halides two 96 watt actinics and three 1 watt leds for moon light. 495 watts total. i use the legs provided with the fixture which puts it about 6" from the glass. i have two maxi jet power heads for current one is hooked to a spray bar behind the rocks twards the bottom to remove detritus. my tank is a bare bottom with around 35 lbs of live rock and around 60 to 70 lbs of rock from an old 55 set up. the tank size is approximatly 48l x 25w x 29d. i use r/o water from a coral life 50 gpd unit. i have two 300 watt marineland heaters. i do use a sponge on the drip tray that came with the sump. it is easy to remove and clean every couple of days. i did a 10 percent water change yesterday and plan to do the same every two weeks from here on in. hope the kids are up to it....lol
I checked the water on monday and the ammonia was 0
nitrites 0
ph 8.4
nitrates 10 ppm
temp 78 f
sp 1.022
i do not have any test kits for calcium and have not added any supplements. the tank has only been up for about 2 weeks. i have three green chromis in the tankwhich are doing very well so far. some bioballs remain in the sump which i am slowly removing and should be totally gone in the next two weeks.
I checked the water on monday and the ammonia was 0
nitrites 0
ph 8.4
nitrates 10 ppm
temp 78 f
sp 1.022
i do not have any test kits for calcium and have not added any supplements. the tank has only been up for about 2 weeks. i have three green chromis in the tankwhich are doing very well so far. some bioballs remain in the sump which i am slowly removing and should be totally gone in the next two weeks.
I think you may be better off getting a dedicated pump for your skimmer. The Berlin will take more than half of the pump output you have now just to run efficiently, which won't leave much left to lift water back up to the tank and provide flow. The Berlin will want the equivalent of a SEN700 or a Mag7, connected to a gate valve (to fine-tune flow to the skimmer).
i only have one hole drilled in the sump. so it would either be pull the sump and all the plumbing or an internal pump. without the skimmer hooked up the water flow through the plumbing is pretty rapid. with the berlin hooked up it only takes in a certain amount of flow. the majority of the water flow seems to return to the tank. if more flow is needed to the skimmer then what pump would you suggest?
Tigershark
Member
The Sen 700 is submersible. Not the highest quality pump in the world but I have had good success with one that I ran 3 years without a problem. In storage in the basement right now as a backup. Hard to beat for the $. Assuming your Maxijets are the 1200's, in combination with your Little Giant external, they should provide just bearly adequate flow for your reef if you get another pump for your skimmer. Of course this flow rate would be totally inadequate for an sps reef like MojoReefs. If you really want to do one simmilar to him you will need at least 3000g/hr flow in your 140 when you get into the SPS corals down the road. Deffinetly the right thing to start with softies, Shrooms, and LPS 
BTW, are you in the Pittsurgh area by chance?
BTW, are you in the Pittsurgh area by chance?
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I am new to reef keeping and new to the board. This is a great site. I have a 29 gallon tank with a DSB and hang on refugium. I have 2x65 PC with one 10,000 k and one actinic, 30 lbs of live rock, CPR R2 skimmer.
The tank has been up for 4 months and doing great with 6 hermits, 2 peppermint shrimp and a mexican turbo snail.
A funny thing happened at the LFS. I told them I was new to reefing and wanted some "easy" corals. I ended up with 2 brown zoo's, a red mushroom and green star matt polyp. I was quite suprised at how reasonable the prices were. Now I know why. I have the most boring corals known to man and after reading a few previous posts I come to find they will over run my tank. They are already spreading after 2 weeks, but its not too late. The brown zoo's and the mushrooms are coming out. My girlfriend likes the green star, so it stays.
So, my question is this. Besides some blue zoo's I must have what is a good recomendation for easy LPS that will grow slowly, not over run the tank and will be happy with my lighting. I did a tank calculator and with all my sand and live rock I have about 19 gal of water, giving me 6.8 watts / gallon.
Bubble coral maybe?
Thanks
The tank has been up for 4 months and doing great with 6 hermits, 2 peppermint shrimp and a mexican turbo snail.
A funny thing happened at the LFS. I told them I was new to reefing and wanted some "easy" corals. I ended up with 2 brown zoo's, a red mushroom and green star matt polyp. I was quite suprised at how reasonable the prices were. Now I know why. I have the most boring corals known to man and after reading a few previous posts I come to find they will over run my tank. They are already spreading after 2 weeks, but its not too late. The brown zoo's and the mushrooms are coming out. My girlfriend likes the green star, so it stays.
So, my question is this. Besides some blue zoo's I must have what is a good recomendation for easy LPS that will grow slowly, not over run the tank and will be happy with my lighting. I did a tank calculator and with all my sand and live rock I have about 19 gal of water, giving me 6.8 watts / gallon.
Bubble coral maybe?
Thanks
no i am not in the pittsburgh area but am in the poconos. to show you what i know about corals i thought i had some pretty good flow. wrong. would it be a good idea to put in more power heads? my son took some advice and purchased a cleaner shrimp ,a small red hermit, a small blue hermit and 5 snails. hopefully in a month a first coral and a lawnmower blenny.
Is your return pump feeding through a static return, or a sea-swirl (or similar)?
You want varying flow, not just flow quantity. So if you add powerheads, they will need to be on some type of controller. Lots of powerheads in a tank don't look that good (IMO). Plus, the cost of the powerheads and a controller adds up.
You might want to consider an oceansmotions along with a medium-sized submersable pump that you can hide behind the rockwork. I will be adding a squirt, connected to a sen500, and outputting to three nozzles located around the tank, plus a spraybar. I will be connecting the sen500 to the oceansmotions with a union and a flexible hose so I can remove the pump for cleaning.
You want varying flow, not just flow quantity. So if you add powerheads, they will need to be on some type of controller. Lots of powerheads in a tank don't look that good (IMO). Plus, the cost of the powerheads and a controller adds up.
You might want to consider an oceansmotions along with a medium-sized submersable pump that you can hide behind the rockwork. I will be adding a squirt, connected to a sen500, and outputting to three nozzles located around the tank, plus a spraybar. I will be connecting the sen500 to the oceansmotions with a union and a flexible hose so I can remove the pump for cleaning.
Tigershark
Member
Sryder, I need to know a couple more things about your system. Is the tank in an airconditioned room?. Do you have multiple overflows? Whats the maximum flow rate for them? Check out this link http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/totm/index.htm
Thats a nice fairly easy kind of reef for a beginner. Zooanthids and Ricordia Florida are good corals for beginners, and lots of reefers keep them in the lower half of their SPS tanks, so you would not necessarily have to get rid of them later. They also would do well under your current lighting. Lots of nice colors and textures for the kids too. Starting out with these easier corals and then getting into the SPS later on down the road is a good idea IMO. Get the basics down with more forgiving corals before you try to keep the demanding SPS corals. For the kids enjoyment its hard to beat a clownfish. IMO, your lighting is good enough to keep a bubble tip anemone with clown. Definitely would waite 5 or 6 months before getting the anemone though.
Thats a nice fairly easy kind of reef for a beginner. Zooanthids and Ricordia Florida are good corals for beginners, and lots of reefers keep them in the lower half of their SPS tanks, so you would not necessarily have to get rid of them later. They also would do well under your current lighting. Lots of nice colors and textures for the kids too. Starting out with these easier corals and then getting into the SPS later on down the road is a good idea IMO. Get the basics down with more forgiving corals before you try to keep the demanding SPS corals. For the kids enjoyment its hard to beat a clownfish. IMO, your lighting is good enough to keep a bubble tip anemone with clown. Definitely would waite 5 or 6 months before getting the anemone though.
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Tigershark
Member
LarryB, I like the sound of a Bubble coral. Maybe some Caulastra. Even though your tank calculator shows you having 6.8w/gal you have to be careful because the intensity of your lighting is not that strong. A 150w halide would be dramatically stronger than your 130w PC's for instance. I don't really put any store in the watts/gal myth. You have low to moderate lighting at best.
I also would be concerned about your DSB long-term. You have a pretty smallish tank for a DSB. R Shimek would even say too small. You could be looking at some problems in the future with it. I would also be curious about how you have your refugium set up.
I'll be back in a day or two.
I also would be concerned about your DSB long-term. You have a pretty smallish tank for a DSB. R Shimek would even say too small. You could be looking at some problems in the future with it. I would also be curious about how you have your refugium set up.
I'll be back in a day or two.
