Ready for first corals?

ExoS · Aug 27, 2021

Hi everybody. I am getting ready to purchase my lighting for my tank. It has been cycled since April and had fish in it for about four months. I wanted to get opinions on my parameters for soft and/or LPS corals.

Salinity: 1.023 (This is low due to not unplugging my ATO during a water change. I am topping of with salt water to bring it back up)
pH: 8.0
Nitrate: 4.2 ppm
PO4: 0.35
Calcium: 465 ppm
Alkalinity: 7.2 dKh

Is the alkalinity too low? Does it even matter for soft corals? Is it too low for LPS? Does everything else look ok (except the salinity that I am fixing)?

I also was concerned because the tank has never been lit. Is it ok to go in with a couple corals as soon as I have lighting, or would you light it for a little while before adding coral?

Thanks for any help or advice.

Clowns-corals-cats · Aug 27, 2021

You can put corals in the second you have good enough lighting. Your paramiters look find for LPS and soft some sps even. Your alk isn't that far off to fix it you could slowly raise it if it makes you feel better.

brmreefer · Aug 27, 2021

My opinion:

Bring down PO4 around 0.1 ppm or lower, but don't bottom out.
Bring Alk up a little to around 8.5 ~ 9.0 dKh and maintain, but yours is not too bad (More important to keep daily swings minimal and stabilize parameters as much as possible)

Start off with a test coral and take it slow.