Coral recommendations

[dreamcatcherr9]

I will be completely new to coral keeping. Not planning on adding for a few weeks (maybe months), but I’d like to start thinking about what and where (tank placement).

Recommendations for easy to care for corals (don’t really want to supplement if I can avoid?).

I have plenty of experience with FOWLR, several tanks over several years.

Currently (for salt water tank), I have a 20g Nuvo.

I upgraded the stock pump to the Mightyjet 538 version. IM UV sterilizer. The stock micron sock. Chemipure blue, Purigen and filter floss pad in media basket. Two (2)100 watt heaters. Esshops Protein Skimmer. Tunze Nano ATO. Aqamai wavemaker pump and nano hydra korola pump.

15 lbs Caribsea Liferock. 10 lbs live sand. Tank livestock: 1 Ocs. clown fish and a tiny ruby red Dragnet. 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 conch, 1 emerald crab, 1 nass snail, 2 ast. snails, 1 mex turbo snail.

 

[btmedic04]

What kind of lighting do you have? That will play a role in what corals you can keep. As for my recommendations, start out with soft corals. They dont have much lighting requirements, are very forgiving of higher nutrients and beginner parameter swings and grow pretty fast.

Zoanthids are a good starter coral, as are mushrooms and leather corals. Green star polyp (gsp), clove polyps, pulsing xenia are also hardy options as well. Just make sure to keep them isolated to their own rock work as they spread fast and can take over your tank. Weekly water changes should keep up with the demand of these corals.

Eventually you can look at LPS corals to add some movement. They dont have high lighting requirements, but they will require testing of your alkalinity, calcium and magnesium along with potentially dosing to replenish those consumed elements. Some LPS corals to start researching might be trumpet/candy cane, blastmusa, duncan, frogspawn and hammer corals. All of these are pretty easy to keep once you have the confidence to try them.

Lastly, there is sps corals. I held off for about 6 months before I tried them when I first started. They require strong light and strong flow. You will have to test your parameters fairly often as these corals consume quite a bit when they are happy and growing. Dosing will eventually become a requirement. Keeping sps may sound like a lot of work, (and it can be at times) but it's pretty rewarding seeing a tiny 1/2" frag become a colony. Some of the easier sps corals are pocillopora, stylophora, plating montipora, montipora digitata. These guys are a little more tolerant to changes and mistakes than acropora, anacropora, and milleapora

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing what you decide to add to your tank!

 

[luke fortunato]

In my experience lps, softies and zoas. I would just stay away from sps. I would stay away from green star poly and xenia for the time being. They are cheap and hardy but they can quickly tank over a tank

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

For all the info I thought I put, left out the most important info. Lol.
Two (2) AI prime (I have them now, still need to add to tank this week.

 

[btmedic04]

For all the info I thought I put, left out the most important info. Lol.
Two (2) AI prime (I have them now, still need to add to tank this week.

All good! Two primes will allow you to grow pretty much anything you'd like in the nuvo 20. I have two of them on a 20 long that are 12" off of the surface of the water and running 100% intensity BRS spectrum and I get anywhere from 50-150 par. I could increase it by moving them closer to the surface

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

All good! Two primes will allow you to grow pretty much anything you'd like in the nuvo 20. I have two of them on a 20 long that are 12" off of the surface of the water and running 100% intensity BRS spectrum and I get anywhere from 50-150 par. I could increase it by moving them closer to the surface

Thanks!! Those numbers help!!

 

[BeejReef]

The world is your oyster with that setup. U can grow anything and dosing will be very affordable. You're a little cramped is all. Make sure to do real research on any lps. A lot of them can really put out some long stinger/sweepers.

Your scape doesn't have much in the way of islands or places to isolate fast growers. I'm very fond of pipe organs.. kinda a stony looking softy that will grow visibly each month, but not over run your tank.

 

[hans4811]

I also just added some LPS corals to my tank, a RSR 250, which also has the AI lights, the Hydra 26's though...pretty much the same thing, so you'll be fine there. And yes, I did start dosing with Calc, Alk and Mag as was mentioned. Got a Jebao DP-4 dosing pump, pretty easy to setup, just had to play with it for about a week testing them everyday. Good to go now, and they all seem happy...started with poly's and have added Duncan's, Hammer, Galaxea, Candy Cane's, Acan and Blasto...ps I did move that Candy from this shot down lower, he started to shrink up that high.

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

I have 0 experience with dosing. That’s my only concern. Definitely start slow with some easy to care for softies. The aqua scape I can redo or adjust if needed (right?).

 

[SudzFD]

I would recommend dosing. It’s not that hard and with softies once a week will likely suffice. I just switched to Bionic 2 part system. One of my LFS has amazing coral growth and success and this is all he uses. I can’t vouch for it yet, but I’ve never seen reef tanks thriving like his. He has huge happy beautiful corals of all types. Alkalinity and calcium is your key testing factors. Yes others are important but alkalinity calcium and salinity are top of the list. Some simple dosing will keep you in the game.

I was in your shoes and successfully kept leathers and anemones, but my leather failed after 9 months and my green star polyps never grew much and wasted away.
I’m convinced it was because I didn’t dose. My nem was fine but I supplemented feeding him shrimp which gave him his nutrition.

In a nutshell. Don’t be afraid to dose. You don’t need fancy controllers and a bunch of testing supplies. You can start off as basic as adding a capful a week after testing your alkalinity and calcium.

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

Do you use Hanna instruments to test? Or?

 

[btmedic04]

I love my hanna alkalinity tester and phosphate ulr tester. Its so much nicer than trying to see the color change or guessing the color on a chart. I'd probably say they are my second most favorite upgrade right after an ATO.

Also I was worried about dosing at first too. I had read that 2 part can increase salinity but its not really a factor if you do your weekly/bi-weekly water changes. I started off with hand dosing BRS 2 part, but I quickly got tired of that so I got a single head doser (Coralbox WF-01 but the Kamoer X1 is a fantastic option as well) and started dosing tropic marin all for reef. its a single additive that covers alkalinity, calcium, magnesium and trace elements. The only real drawback is it is exponentially more expensive than 2 part. A 1L bottle is about $33. The good news however is a 1L bottle will last a long time on a 20 gallon tank, and if you want to go the mad scientist route, BRS sells a kit that allows you to make your own at home using off the shelf tropic marin components. Doing so will allow you to make 10L at about $11-12 per liter. You just need to get a magnetic stirrer, beaker, kitchen scale and graduated measuring cups from amazon. I think I spent around $45 for all of that

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

So you did go mad scientist route? Lol. Thank you. All that info helps. Off for research I go!

I only need a Calcium meter and a DHK meter to start 2 part dosing (?). I don’t mind spending a little for automation to make life easier (yes, my ATO was a great investment).

I will look into the “Coralbox WF-01”(?).

Thanks again!

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

I found the Kamoer X1. Can anyone tell me more how dosing equipment works? Do you need anything else (additional pumps, power heads, containers, etc).

 

[btmedic04]

For the kamoer x1, you need a phone with bluetooth and the app to set up your dosing schedule, a container for your additives. Some folks make their container with Voss water bottles since they're glass and look clean, I bought a 1.5 liter acrylic dosing container off of amazon that works well. I believe the last thing you will need is a dosing line holder as I dont think one is included with the x1.

Yeah, I went full mad scientist with making all for reef. It was a pretty fun side project, plus I now have enough of it to last me for the next year for my two tanks

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

If you are using a “all in one” project, what are you need to mix??

 

[btmedic04]

You need this kit from BRS or the individual components from this kit and 750ml of rodi water

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[dreamcatcherr9]

Thank you for all your help and information. I just watched a BRS video. States that Alk and Calc drop about the same rate and we only really need to test for Alk? Thoughts? If that’s the case then the All For Reef combo product would be ok?

 

[btmedic04]

Yep. Alk and cal are consumed at about the same rate. I check my alk weekly and only spot check cal monthly or if changing salt. I run my alk at around 9 and my cal around 450 and all for reef keeps them both stable. Tropic marin does say in some cases you may need to add alk in addition to all for reef, but that hasnt been my experience over the last year

 

[SudzFD]

Thank you for all your help and information. I just watched a BRS video. States that Alk and Calc drop about the same rate and we only really need to test for Alk? Thoughts? If that’s the case then the All For Reef combo product would be ok?

Yep this sounds right. I still check other parameters from time to time but alkalinity is your key parameter to check.