Loosing my cool...

[OA3B]

Hey community
I’m beating myself senseless (afraid for the most part.) I don’t know the next step to take. I know I want to start with corals before adding fish to my DT. All that’s in there is a cuc. What I’m hung up on is should add trace nutrients to the tank before adding the corals or should I add them together (corals and nutrients.) I did add some pods to both my refuge and DT along with some phytoplankton. Calling myself seeding my tank.
What to do???
Help me please ;Nailbiting

 

[PDR]

Couple of questions:

Why are you wanting to add coral before the fish?

What kind of coral are you looking to add?

What size tank?

How long has it been running?

What is or will be your planned water change schedule?

 

[Crabs McJones]

I've always been a firm believer in that if you cannot test for it you shouldn't dose it. If you do consistent water changes, in my experience or unless you have a very very high demand tank, you don't need to dose minor or trace elements. Water changes do a great job of replenishing these for you. The only ones to really concern yourself with is Calcium Alkalinity and Magnesium. And you don't really need to dose those until you start getting into SPS corals.

 

[MSB123]

A little info would be great!
Tank size
How long it has been up
Full tank picture/shot (FTS)
Parameters
What coral/ CUC/ Fish you plan to add
Thanks!

 

[MSB123]

Couple of questions:

Why are you wanting to add coral before the fish?

What kind of coral are you looking to add?

What size tank?

How long has it been running?

What is or will be your planned water change schedule?

Oops- I had my reply open for so long, you beat me to it

 

[OA3B]

A little info would be great!
Tank size
How long it has been up
Full tank picture/shot (FTS)
Parameters
What coral/ CUC/ Fish you plan to add
Thanks!

90g
roughly 2 years (I’m the second owner)
Salinity 1.024
pH 8.2
Nitrates 20 ppm
Nitrites 0 ppm
Ammonia 0 ppm
(API test kit)
Water changes once every 2 weeks 10-15g
RO/DI salt mix and top off

Those little black squares are where I would like to place my corals. The corals I would like to bring into the tank are some Zoas, frogspawn, trumpets, toadstools, and maybe a chalice.
Cuc consist of a peppermint shrimp, blue leg hermits, and astrea snails. I figured that corals would be more challenging than fish. Haven’t put much thought into fish inhabitants.

 

[MSB123]

90g
roughly 2 years (I’m the second owner)
Salinity 1.024
pH 8.2
Nitrates 20 ppm
Nitrites 0 ppm
Ammonia 0 ppm
(API test kit)
Water changes once every 2 weeks 10-15g
RO/DI salt mix and top off

Those little black squares are where I would like to place my corals. The corals I would like to bring into the tank are some Zoas, frogspawn, trumpets, toadstools, and maybe a chalice.
Cuc consist of a peppermint shrimp, blue leg hermits, and astrea snails. I figured that corals would be more challenging than fish. Haven’t put much thought into fish inhabitants.

You are definitely going to want to replace that API, they are not very accurate.
Let me look over the other stuff and let you know what I think!

 

[SPR1968]

90g
roughly 2 years (I’m the second owner)
Salinity 1.024
pH 8.2
Nitrates 20 ppm
Nitrites 0 ppm
Ammonia 0 ppm
(API test kit)
Water changes once every 2 weeks 10-15g
RO/DI salt mix and top off

Those little black squares are where I would like to place my corals. The corals I would like to bring into the tank are some Zoas, frogspawn, trumpets, toadstools, and maybe a chalice.
Cuc consist of a peppermint shrimp, blue leg hermits, and astrea snails. I figured that corals would be more challenging than fish. Haven’t put much thought into fish inhabitants.

Before you add anything to the tank like corals, I would let us have readings for your foundation element levels of alkalinity, calcium and magnesium and also phosphate all of which are very important and you need to ensure they are at ‘reasonable’ levels before introducing corals, or they will tell you very quickly they aren’t happy.

As far as adding ‘trace elements’ you don’t want to add anything unless you’ve tested for it and found it needs adding. In your case if you use a good salt (like Red Sea just as an example) you might not need to add much of anything to start with as your 2 week water changes should deal with that as you don’t have much in the tank.

And welcome to R2R as well!!

 

[OA3B]

My thoughts exactly about the API test kit. I use instant ocean salt mix. I’m going to wait until I do a test for phosphate, calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. I see a lot of people favor Red Sea test kits.
Oh boy, more shopping!!
Thank y’all

 

[ryeguyy84]

I like the red Sea for Cal, alk and mag bit the phosphate test kit (imo) was to hard to read. I got the Hanna tester and love it.

I agree with everyone else on the trace elements, you don't need them. Water changes will take care of those for you.

 

[Skep18]

roughly 2 years (I’m the second owner)

To be clear, the tank hasn't been running with rock and saltwater for 2 years but no fish/coral, right? If so, very impressive, lol.

 

[theMeat]

If tank is cycled, parameters, lighting and circulation are good, you can start to add hardy corals. Many people, myself included, chose to add corals first, before fish, because they are filter feeders.
Since you don’t have anything in the tank that is consuming elements would guess they’re all good if you are using one of many quality salt mixes.
Red Sea is better than api imo, but many reefers with awesome tanks use nothing but. Many hardly check at all, unless they see signs of change. Your lfs can check your parameters for you as well, that you can compare against your api results

Welcome to the hobby

 

[OA3B]

;Headphone

To be clear, the tank hasn't been running with rock and saltwater for 2 years but no fish/coral, right? If so, very impressive, lol.

No, lol...from my understanding the guy had fish and corals. Sold them except for the cuc and I purchased the complete setup from him. I picked it up from him while it was still operating. Emptied out the water to the level I could lift the tank. Transported it for about an hour long drive. Made it home, had fresh water brewing already. Filled it back up, it’s been running for about three months for me. No serious problems (knock on wood), I’m feeling good about the purchase. I’m just not knowing the next step is driving me up the wall ;Sour. I know I will have some issues, but if it can be avoided from bone-headed mistakes. I’m all in! ;Facepalm

 

[OA3B]

If tank is cycled, parameters, lighting and circulation are good, you can start to add hardy corals. Many people, myself included, chose to add corals first, before fish, because they are filter feeders.
Since you don’t have anything in the tank that is consuming elements would guess they’re all good if you are using one of many quality salt mixes.
Red Sea is better than api imo, but many reefers with awesome tanks use nothing but. Many hardly check at all, unless they see signs of change. Your lfs can check your parameters for you as well, that you can compare against your api results

Welcome to the hobby

Thanks

Take a look at this

This is in the tank. I posted it the hitch hiker section. Our comrades says that it looks to be Zoa blooms. Ok, alright (I’m thinking) this is good. What should i do for them to grow?
P.S. This picture is without tank lights on.

 

[Skep18]

Thanks

Take a look at this

This is in the tank. I posted it the hitch hiker section. Our comrades says that it looks to be Zoa blooms. Ok, alright (I’m thinking) this is good. What should i do for them to grow?
P.S. This picture is without tank lights on.

Give them some good light and a little flow, monitor ammonia to make sure nothing from the move drives it up and you should be good. Looks like the colony grew that much in that tank with its setup. That's a good sign!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Test kits:

There is nothing wrong with using API test kits, especially for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and even phosphate. The first 4 are easy to measure and in a few months you may stop measuring them altogether because they are so stable. Phosphate can be very difficult to measure because any algae in the tank will take it up as 'fertilizer' VERY quickly and your test will read zero. That's why so many reefers have refugiums (grow macroalgae and keep down phosphate levels.

I still use API for Ca and alk because they are easy and really, none of the test kits are accurate enough to make a serious difference. Five different people using the same test kit and testing the same water will get five slightly different results. It has more to do with the tester than with the test kit. Just do it the same way EVERY time and make it a routine. That way you'll get to see trends if anything changes significantly. Don't sweat small changes!

I also keep Salifert test kits for Ca, alk and Mg (API doesn't have a kit for Mg). But I very rarely use them. If my API test gives me a real 'flier' of a result on the initial test, I'll test again. If it's duplicated in the 2nd test, I'll do a 3rd test with the Salifert kit. About 99 times out of 100 the Salifert test is the same as the API test.

Trace elements:

As others have said, don't even begin to worry about them until you start dealing with large volumes of very difficult corals and want the very best growth and health possible... no matter what the cost. Even then, if you are doing water changes and/or feeding properly, trace elements shouldn't be an issue. Temperature, salinity, Ca and alk are the 4 parameters that are subject to fairly rapid changes and need to be monitored regularly once you have an fairly stable system. The corals you named are all fairly easy to keep with good basic husbandry.

I keep a 40g cube full of zoas with a few other soft corals, lps corals, sps corals and lots of anemones. I test every week for Ca and alk and manually dose those as needed. I feed fairly heavy and filter with a sock, a good skimmer and a refugium. I do very few water changes (about 5 to 10g/month). My Ca goes down to 400 and I dose back up to 450. My alk goes down to 8.0dKH and I dose back up to 9.6 dKH. My tank is so full of coral (over 100 different corals) I'd be hard pressed to find a spot to add any in a tank that is 2'x2'. My tank is less than 1 year old and the photo below was taken several months ago.

20181006_102313_resized by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr