How to grow corals from liverock?

[saltwateronly]

ive been told by other members that i had feather dusters in my tank.i was also told that other coral might grow if i was lucky enough to have some on my live rock.so i was wondering how i might spark the fire to grow coral in my tank.i know i need a new bulb but is led lighting necessary because they are expensive haha. i was wondering if some one can tell me if any of the algae shouldn't be there or what have you.and sorry for the size of the pictures only way i can have it in detail.

 

[islander84]

You should probably post this in the newbies section. This is more dedicated to SPS corals. But to answer a few questions, no led lighting is not necessary. T5, Metal Halide work just fine. And depending on where you got your live rock I wouldn't get my hopes up about coral just magically appearing especially any stony corals.... maybe a Xenia or some GSP....

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Most of the time there will not be any coral on liverock that you got from a store. There are other things like, feather dusters, sponge, etc. that commonly can be found on rock like you have though.

 

[Reefing Madness]

No need for expensive lighting anymore as T-5HO is sufficient to grow even SPS corals. So just get your hands on a good 2-4 lamp T-5HO fixture.
Next, you need to keep your water params in line, meaning
Cal-400-460
Alk- 8-12
Mag- 1250-1350
SG- 1.025-1.027
Temps 77-79
Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates-0
Phosphates-.05 or less

 

[jservedio]

I doubt you will find any stony corals on your live rock - the conditions for shipping an storing are just too harsh. The only thing I've ever seen on live rock was zoanthids and palys. I got 2 tiny nasty gray looking zoas on the last liverock I bought.

Zoas are really the only thing that are capable of surviving being out of water, in super hot/cold conditions, and being jumbled around in a container full of rock. Even then, they are pretty rare. Better off waiting till you have your conditions under control (stable nitrate, phosphate, alk, ca, mg, pH, and temp) and making sure your algae is under control then going out and buying some frags.

In most cases, any coral that comes on your live rock are going to be super ugly, possibly nuisance, and worst case - highly toxic. Sometimes you do get really lucky and get some really nice looking tunicates or sponges.