Starter coral
- Thread starter clownvalk3
- Start date
- Tagged users None
KrisReef
10K Club member
2.5 years is long enough to get your system pretty well established. Assuming you have enough PAR from your lights and water movement in the tank, and that you want to start with SPS corals, then I would suggest a frag of Birds nest or a Montipora cap are pretty good indicator corals for a first addition. They are fairly fast growing and will help you judge your systems ability to handle alkalinity and calcium consumption and replacement. I also presume you are or will also be testing for nitrate, phosphate, magnesium to ensure these parameters stay at proper levels.
Without knowing more about you tank it's impossible to give you any suggestions.
1. Size of tank
2. sump?
3. lighting
4. total flow in tank (include all powerheads and return)
5. current inhabitants
6. Current parameters, especially Nitrate, Phosphate, Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium
7. Soft Coral, LPS, or SPS? There are species of all of them that are "easier", and there are some that can be very difficult even for experienced reefers.
1. Size of tank
2. sump?
3. lighting
4. total flow in tank (include all powerheads and return)
5. current inhabitants
6. Current parameters, especially Nitrate, Phosphate, Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium
7. Soft Coral, LPS, or SPS? There are species of all of them that are "easier", and there are some that can be very difficult even for experienced reefers.
clownvalk3
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2016
- Messages
- 165
- Reaction score
- 43
I don’t know a think about corals.
I get that. No problem. What we need to know more about is your current setup and what your long term goals are for it. You'll be learning about corals as you start to keep them.
Sod Buster
Valuable Member
Crank those lights up. 2 1/2 years running?
Surfer311
Community Member
Sorry it is dark, but there is my tank setup!
Great looking tank! You can grow just about anything with your blackbox LEDs, as others have mentioned softies such as mushrooms, leathers, zoas and some lps (frogspawns, hammers) are all great options to start with. Green star polyps are bullet-proof and look really nice, but if you decide to keep it make sure and place on their own little rock island in the sandbed. This way you can remove and prune regularly to keep from spreading throughout your tank and overtaking the rest of your coral. Bubble tip anenomes are also extremely hardy, but just like gsp can quickly overtake your reef by splitting often.
Easy way to start: Grab a reef test kit to keep an eye on your parameters, and dose a 2-part (Calcium/Alkalinity) at night or in the morning before the lights come on as needed to keep levels in desired range. Lastly, enjoy.
clownvalk3
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2016
- Messages
- 165
- Reaction score
- 43
Yes 2.5 years.
clownvalk3
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2016
- Messages
- 165
- Reaction score
- 43
Great looking tank! You can grow just about anything with your blackbox LEDs, as others have mentioned softies such as mushrooms, leathers, zoas and some lps (frogspawns, hammers) are all great options to start with. Green star polyps are bullet-proof and look really nice, but if you decide to keep it make sure and place on their own little rock island in the sandbed. This way you can remove and prune regularly to keep from spreading throughout your tank and overtaking the rest of your coral. Bubble tip anenomes are also extremely hardy, but just like gsp can quickly overtake your reef by splitting often.
Easy way to start: Grab a reef test kit to keep an eye on your parameters, and dose a 2-part (Calcium/Alkalinity) at night or in the morning before the lights come on as needed to keep levels in desired range. Lastly, enjoy.
Thank you I will check those out, I have a reef test kit. What is a 2-part (calcium/alkalinity) an additive?
Sod Buster
Valuable Member
Yes. It's calcium and alkalinity booster when water changes don't keep up with coral demand. A common one is esv part a and part b. If you have a red sea reef foundation test kit, or can test calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium, write those down every 2 days between your weekly/biweekly water changes. When the corals start to consume those, you need supplement. An easy is kalkwasser in your topoff container, then a 2 part dose regimen.
Surfer311
Community Member
So, in short - natural seawater/coral reefs contain these elements as corals use them to build (calcify) their skeletons. In your aquarium, you will need to supplement to provide for your corals. Most aquarium salts will contain enough of these elements (Calcium, Alkalinity (Bicarbonate), Magnesium, Potassium, Trace Elemenents) that when you mix into freshly made ro/di water and perform water changes it will add these items to your water column in your aquarium. However, as you add more corals and they start to grow, their daily consumption of these items will exceed the amount provided by water change and you will need to dose these items into your tank daily to keep up with your corals demands.
So, a 2-part dosing is generally two bottles/containers, one containing calcium (chloride) and the other bicarbonate (Alkalinity), they are in liquid form and you will measure out appropriate amounts to pour into the tank to maintain these levels. There are lots of different brands, I personally have used Oceans Blend part 1&2 for around 10 years with great results.
Very easy to do, as you test your water parameters with your reef test kit, you will adjust how much of part 1 and part 2 to put into your tank each day to maintain the proper levels. For example, my personal tank (mixed reef with sps, lps and softies) currently requires 45ml daily of part 1 (Calcium) and 20ml daily of part 2 (Alkalinity) to maintain Calcium at 420 and Alkalinity at 8.
This is all you will need to get started, enjoy success and your reef tank.
My first corals were Frog Spawn and Zoa's. They are awesome to start and pretty tough. Just do not get designer zoa's till you know. You can get big rocks full of the cheap greens to start. Also like @KrisReef said, Birds nest is a really good starter choice for SPS.
