First time corals

ndz98 · Oct 23, 2015

I am looking to start putting corals in my tank within the next couple weeks. I have never done this before so do you have any suggestions on what kind of corals I should get? Also how do you take care of your corals? I know I've seen people check all sorts of different levels and I was wondering how necessary that is. I have a 29 gal tank so what could be a good amount of corals to put in before it becomes too much? Sorry for all the questions.

Cameron · Oct 23, 2015

How long has your tank been running? What are your parameters? What kind of lights do you have? What kind of fish do you have in your tank? These are all very important things to consider when picking what corals to add. That being said, zoas are a great starter coral, but you want to make sure everything is in line before you add anything.

ndz98 · Oct 23, 2015

Cameron said:
How long has your tank been running? What are your parameters? What kind of lights do you have? What kind of fish do you have in your tank? These are all very important things to consider when picking what corals to add. That being said, zoas are a great starter coral, but you want to make sure everything is in line before you add anything.

My tank has been running for about 3 months now. I haven't done any testing on the water so I'm not sure about my parameters. All I know right now is that my temp is 76-78. I am getting a Skyaqua LED 24in in the mail today and I'm going to set that up on my tank later. I have two clowns and a sailfin tang and a snail. As far as the testing goes, would that be something I can do at home on my own without much difficulty or would it just be easier to take water samples to my local pet store?

cameronh · Oct 23, 2015

You can do testing on your own, its not too difficult to understand at first. I would recommend a few more snails and a few hermits to help with you maintenance on cleaning. But I have a 3 gallon tank, I do water changes every week and have my salinity at 1.025. I would definitely start out with soft corals. Zoas are definitely the way to go. I have many corals in my 3 gallon and its very easy to maintain. I added after a week of tank being setup (had alot of live rock) and havent lost anything.....yet, and hopefully yhat wont happen. Just stay on top of your tank and go with the flow.

Harold Green · Oct 23, 2015

First thing and you will hear this from many people. A 29 gallon tank is way to small for a sailfin or pretty much any tang. Next up, a list of what not to add. Zenia, yellow polyps, keyan tree, anethelia, green star polyps. All are easy to grow and will over grow the entire tank in a year or so if not contained. Soft corals are your best bet to start with. Leathers, mushrooms, zoas, lps corals like brains that can be fed easily and require less lighting than sps corals. Good quality test kits are the way to go. Start with the basics. Nitrate test, later calcium, magnesium, ph. These will give you the basic tests most of us begin with. Do you have an ro filter? Very few hobbists have tap water that's safe to use for growing corals.

ndz98 · Oct 23, 2015

cameronh said:
You can do testing on your own, its not too difficult to understand at first. I would recommend a few more snails and a few hermits to help with you maintenance on cleaning. But I have a 3 gallon tank, I do water changes every week and have my salinity at 1.025. I would definitely start out with soft corals. Zoas are definitely the way to go. I have many corals in my 3 gallon and its very easy to maintain. I added after a week of tank being setup (had alot of live rock) and havent lost anything.....yet, and hopefully yhat wont happen. Just stay on top of your tank and go with the flow.

Okay thank you for the help!

ndz98 · Oct 23, 2015

Harold Green said:
First thing and you will hear this from many people. A 29 gallon tank is way to small for a sailfin or pretty much any tang. Next up, a list of what not to add. Zenia, yellow polyps, keyan tree, anethelia, green star polyps. All are easy to grow and will over grow the entire tank in a year or so if not contained. Soft corals are your best bet to start with. Leathers, mushrooms, zoas, lps corals like brains that can be fed easily and require less lighting than sps corals. Good quality test kits are the way to go. Start with the basics. Nitrate test, later calcium, magnesium, ph. These will give you the basic tests most of us begin with. Do you have an ro filter? Very few hobbists have tap water that's safe to use for growing corals.

I get ro water from my local pet store. It's pretty cheap. Only like 50 cents a gallon.

ndz98 · Oct 23, 2015

cameronh said:
You can do testing on your own, its not too difficult to understand at first. I would recommend a few more snails and a few hermits to help with you maintenance on cleaning. But I have a 3 gallon tank, I do water changes every week and have my salinity at 1.025. I would definitely start out with soft corals. Zoas are definitely the way to go. I have many corals in my 3 gallon and its very easy to maintain. I added after a week of tank being setup (had alot of live rock) and havent lost anything.....yet, and hopefully yhat wont happen. Just stay on top of your tank and go with the flow.

Oh and nice tank by the way!

cameronh · Oct 23, 2015

Yes haha kenya trees.......they grow pretty quick, green star polyps.....also the same. As you can see I have both in my tank. Only a month and they have almost doubled in size. Gonna have to move them to another tank. I wish lawnmower blennys lived up to their name, but even with that said, my tank is too small for a blenny.

Harold Green · Oct 23, 2015

cameronh said:
Yes haha kenya trees.......they grow pretty quick, green star polyps.....also the same. As you can see I have both in my tank. Only a month and they have almost doubled in size. Gonna have to move them to another tank. I wish lawnmower blennys lived up to their name, but even with that said, my tank is too small for a blenny.

If you have a lfs that will take kenya trees in as trade you've got it made. I pull several dozen out of my tank every month or so. Glue them on plugs and take them in. It's the only upside to having the constant battle to keep them under control. Unfortunately they started from some bare live rock I reused. I haven't found a way to completely remove them from the rock scape without removing the rocks. As soon as the get an inch or two in size I take a pair of tweezers and twist them from the rock but they always manage to regrow from the remains down in the rock.

cameronh · Oct 23, 2015

Thats what im hoping for. They take trades with everything. Even live rock, which I dont like as anyone could take some dry rock with some color still attached and someone can buy it the next day thinking its live and its not. Needless to say I dont get my live rock there anymore.