Corals for Stock Biocube 29?

[pdiehm]

Got a stock Coralife BioCube 29, don't plan on upgrading the lighting, have a pair of clowns, and maybe a blenny in time for it. Want to put in some basic, hard to kill corals that are colorful, and perhaps may host the clowns.

Any ideas or advice on what corals?

I was thinking a torch or something along those lines, but not sure if I have enough lighting for that.

 

[saltyphish]

soft corals are what you want, and some lps. You may get lucky with either a Duncan, torch, or hammer coral for the clownfish. Zoas are very hardy and offer a lot of different colorations

 

[LetItReef]

Look into Toadstool or Frogspawn.

 

[Seth fhy]

Leathers/xenia/gsp/kenya tree/zoanthids are all great beginner corals!

 

[pdiehm]

thanks. got some time as I was told to wait 6 months after tank is cycled before adding corals. Only been about 8 weeks.

 

[saltyphish]

Watch your water temp with the stock compact pc's with the hood. Mine went up to 87 degrees. There are ways to reduce it quite a bit without sinking a fortune into it though. let me know if you have problems with temp.

 

[pdiehm]

So far the temps have been around 78 with lights on for 8-10 hrs

 

[saltyphish]

Sounds good. Good luck.

 

[brandon429]

Also, in no way do you have to wait six mos. you absolutely can, though, with no harm.

Post a full tank shot of your aquarium, nobody w rush ya I'm just curious at the age of the live rock submerged time, pics show that.

 

[Seth fhy]

Definitely agree with brandon! When my tank was your age I already had fish and a few soft corals in it! (And there were no problems)

 

[brandon429]

Im always a pushing for something in reefing, i cant just be still



but its not to offend, rush, or cause to slip. its because knowing where you do and do not have control can change the way you reef forever

its just my opinion that knowing exactly what you can and cant do with a tank allows you to dodge the curves it will throw at you, meeting every single challenge. any form of hesitancy always compounds in other areas and either invaders can take over, or times where a full water change would reset your params easily if that wasnt done out of fear of destabilization I watch nano keepers chase params for 10 mos straight vs a 10 min reset, that kind of thing.


With pics, we can tell where you are at in your cycle many times. by pics! in this way:

if the pic has gray rock with no calcification, life, or indications of submersion, agreed we wait longer or do an actual ammonia digest test/

if its live rock from a store, purple, dotted w fanworms, if there are pods in the system associated with rock w for sure living materials on it, get to reefing yesterday, that kind of thing. i wasnt going to reco adding fish too soon or anything like that, just a statement regarding the maturity of the filtration system off live rock pics, merely a talking point.

 

[pdiehm]

 

[pdiehm]

 

[pdiehm]

Everything I have read, the tank is where it should be. Just finished cycling about 6 weeks ago. Had bad diatoms, snails cleaned that up.

Just added my ATO. I figure with 7 gallons of water, once a month refill

 

[saltyphish]

You should be ok to go (based on water tests) for some soft corals as mentioned above. One thing to remember though is take it slowly. Add something cheap and see how it does after keeping it successfully for a month or so add something else. Mainly just go slow.

 

[pdiehm]

So, we had a family project. We each pick out a coral (total of 4).

Wife: Sun Polyps
Me: Atomic or Electric Torch
11 year old: Maze Brain
5 year old: Pom Pom Xenia or Green & White Pipe Organ

with the stock lighting (power compacts), I estimate PAR to be from 50 on the bottom, to 200 at the surface...would any of these not be a good choice? I think the Torch is the one that may be iffy, but I can put that on top the rockwork, and probably be in the 150+ par range.

 

[brandon429]

Those are above starter corals for sure in my opinion pipe organ needs to wait and maze brain especially. Just my opinion. Tubipora musica, the pipe organ, is almost always wild caught and they are used to a smorgasbord of feed options from a mature tank. Challenge bigtime even for a mature tank, algae and sponges like to grow and challenge them competitively.

My take was you don't have to be barren for many mos, but I'd shoot lower on the scale like zoanthids and a candy coral heres my reasoning:

Once you've done an ammonia digest test on white rocks that have been submerged, to indicate the ability to digest lets say 3-4 ppm to zero in 24 hours, then they can technically run any bioload generators under that margin. Corals need food you give them, light, and correct water params

They recommend the subjective 6 mos as food webs and bio supports build up in the tank, plus if you ramp up you have been practicing feeding and exporting the tank long enough, with stability and ability to rebound from errors (I over fed and under changed how can I fix this algae etc) and you have cleared the hurdle for salinity temp mistakes, all the typical practice runs.

Each of those corals I'd wait until you have a verified community of life on your live rock rock and that may be more or less than 6 mos for those pro corals. The same consistent tank care and feeding w generate those same support webs, and we can see them in pics when ready, in my opinion do not buy those corals buy some zoanthids

Also,get some high quality truly cured live rock to add and speed this rascal up. It w transmit its benthics slowly to the rocks awaiting.

 

[brandon429]

White, highly reflective rocks will have algae issues and tests as soon as you start adding feed nutrients to that system, which will begin to define how you will handle algae challenges by experimenting in that tank and those fluxes are no place for those corals mentioned

Conversely, fully matured live rock xferred from other systems has support webs, purple non reflective surfaces, and space competition where algae dominates less, has an undoubtable filtration capacity such that you don't have to second guess it, cured live rock is a match for those challenging heavy feeding corals so your rock needs time to catch up and be tested which is why adding starter corals and feed and water changes is the right start. If you get zoanthids entangled with algae its simply less cost and enviroimpact than maze brains and pipes, truly they must wait until fully colonized rocks are in place and the system has been verified with a much simpler regime.

 

[pdiehm]

I don't understand anything that has been said in last 2 posts except the corals family chose aren't good.

We are looking for color but stuff I can take care of. Only thing I saw that I recognized was zoanthids as a starter coral

 

[brandon429]

Yes I agree
Those are not the ideal choice, those are pro level regarding the likelihood they would die in a new tank. Others however are fine.

Good starters, where you put in a few simple corals and simply practice changing water, feeding, and dealing with algae, are commonly:
Zoanthids
Candy corals, caulastrea
Mushroom corals, these are colorful and prob easiest corals I know
Ricordia

Its better to practice on these and wait a little while on fish and higher corals in my opinion

You want to be able you are sure you can control salt and freshwater levels in the tank topoff, temp levels, and be able to do many practice water changes that don't kill the starter corals before adding fish and higher corals