Coral limit?

[WhitePanther93]

I’ve had my tank for 5~6 months at this point and I was wondering, aside from physical space, is there any real limit on how many corals I can put in my tank?

 

[Captain Hook]

As many as your tank/ wallet can handle!

that being said are all your parameters in check for a reef system?

 

[PatW]

It depends. Corals compete for space. Soft corals generally use chemical warfare to deal with rivals. So if you want a bunch in your reef, you might want to keep on top of water changes are regularly run charcoal.

LPS corals tend to use stings to deal with their neighbors so you want to have a buffer between them and potential victims.

SPS corals are the wimps of the reef. But montipora corals grow fast and can sort of grow over and cover up other SPS corals. They can’t do this very well with LPS corals.

Acropora corals with their more vertical approach can actually shade out montipora. But usually montipora can grow over them before this happens.

So to keep the reef balanced you sort of have to do trimming to keep the more aggressive stuff in check.

 

[WhitePanther93]

As many as your tank/ wallet can handle!

that being said are all your parameters in check for a reef system?

So far so good. Last time I checked nitrates were at 15 and phosphates were a bit high, but so far so good. I’ve seen some growth in a few of my corals. Particularly in my zoas. But a couple of my micromussa lords have some new heads growing. One has about 5 new heads growing in.

 

[homer1475]

Space, and your wallet are the only limiting factors on the amount of coral one can keep.

Of course you have to keep an eye out for coral warfare, but that goes back to space.

 

[WhitePanther93]

It depends. Corals compete for space. Soft corals generally use chemical warfare to deal with rivals. So if you want a bunch in your reef, you might want to keep on top of water changes are regularly run charcoal.

LPS corals tend to use stings to deal with their neighbors so you want to have a buffer between them and potential victims.

SPS corals are the wimps of the reef. But montipora corals grow fast and can sort of grow over and cover up other SPS corals. They can’t do this very well with LPS corals.

Acropora corals with their more vertical approach can actually shade out montipora. But usually montipora can grow over them before this happens.

So to keep the reef balanced you sort of have to do trimming to keep the more aggressive stuff in check.

Yeah I’ve been trying to keep my corals in places where they won’t harass each other too badly. I have an island for zoas, my hammers are on there own designated rock , my only sps at the moment is a green birds nest of some sort who hangs out over open space towards the top. The most controversial corals I have are som micro goni which are on there own separate ledge. The only thing that’s out of place is my rainbow bubble tip anemone. I plopped him on a rock expect him to move but he decided to hang out exactly where I left him… right by all of my acans.