Hey I have a 20 Gal that is about a month and a half old. I have 2 small clowns with a small yellow tail damsel, 2 peppermint shrimp, 3 conch snails and 2 mystery snails. Parameters are at 0 po4, 8 dkh, 460ppm CA, 15 ppm nitrate, 0 ppm ammonia, 8.4 pH. I know my tank is young but my parameters have held steady for about 3 weeks now except for a little rise in nitrates. I would like to add a zooanthid for my first coral. Not sure if I should get coral yet or let my tank become a bit more established. Any feedback would help. Thanks!
To try corals yet?
- Thread starter Tom McCoy
- Start date
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Do you guys have anything in mind for a hardy good looking coral. I really like zooanthids and frogspawns. I really like anemone's but I've heard a ton of negatives with having luck with anemone in such a young tank or just taking over your tank.
tyler1503
2500 Club Member
If you can keep shrimp, corals will be fine. My advice would be to start with some hardy ones until you get used to them, then when you're comfortable, try something a little more demanding 
tyler1503
2500 Club Member
Cynarina, euphyllia, duncans, candy canes, zoas, favia, heliofungia. There are heaps of options!
40B Knasty
Valuable Member
One question. What kind of lights do you have?
Here is my 20g from last year after 4 months with a Solarmax T5 HO. ATI Coral Plus and Blue Plus for bulbs
Here is my 20g from last year after 4 months with a Solarmax T5 HO. ATI Coral Plus and Blue Plus for bulbs
One question. What kind of lights do you have?
Here is my 20g from last year after 4 months with a Solarmax T5 HO. ATI Coral Plus and Blue Plus for bulbs
And wow that looks awesome! I hope to have that nice of a tank in the future. If you don't mind what did you have set up as in filtration? I'm running the reef octopus 1000. I don't have any chemical filtration just sticking with water changes to keep my nitrates down. Did you run gfo or anything along those lines?
ws6kid
Well-Known Member
Plenty of light to do most corals in that tank. It depends on how overgrown you want it to look Xenia, Sinularia, Green Star Polyps are all fairly easy, but will also eventually spread to take over all of the space. Personally, I would put a few types of zoas and some euphyllia (frogspawn, torch, ect.) in for lots of movement and color. Your clowns will host the euphyllia also so you don't have to put an anemone in if you don't want to.
Xenia, Sinularia, Green Star Polyps are all fairly easy, but will also eventually spread to take over all of the space. Personally, I would put a few types of zoas and some euphyllia (frogspawn, torch, ect.) in for lots of movement and color. Your clowns will host the euphyllia also so you don't have to put an anemone in if you don't want to.
Cool I didn't know that clowns host euphyllia. I'm probably going to stay away from anemone then. They just seem so troublesome. And not too sure how I want my tank to look just want everything to be healthy. Thanks for all the help I'm brand new to the hobby and enjoying it a ton!Plenty of light to do most corals in that tank. It depends on how overgrown you want it to look
40B Knasty
Valuable Member
Haha nice! Reef Octopus BH1000, 22lbs LR, and FLUVAL 50 that was it. 6 fish.
Now the BH1000 & FLUVAL C4 on a 40B. Transferred it in January. I had to nuke 20lbs of LR. Got some aiptasia. Picked up some sweet frags at the New England Farmers frag swap this past weekend. 2 Aussie gold torches, bam bams(ZOA), and a free pink setosa. Now I am just waiting for it all to grow in. Pick up some Reefroids. Don't target feed it. Spray it in front of your filter return or a power head. That's were people get it wrong. Only a half of what they say. 2 or 3x a week. That helps also.
Also with your lights what do you have?
Best to run them high is dawn and dusk. NOT mid afternoon. That is the least amount of photosynthesis processed by zooxanthellae which is a brown algae that lives on corals that feeds your corals. If you ever have any questions man hit me up anytime. I just found about the dawn and dusk time thing last month. Rasta zoanthinds are known to be Slow growers. I would get 2 or 3 since I started using Reefroids. Now with the light change and Reefroids. 5 new poylps this month!
Wow I'm actually just realizing that I had a big aptasia when I first started my cycle and I was like "that looks pretty cool" haha didn't know what it was exactly then one day I say 3 little baby ones popped up and then more! (This was the first week of cycling) Then my ammonia spiked really night along with nitrites and absolutely murdered everything that was living in my tank. I had dead worms 3 inches long that I didn't even know were I my tank! Some pretty freaky critters showed up lifeless on my sand bed. Let's just say my first water change was quite the cleanup. Thank god that god rid of the aptasia. Anywho I've never heard of that lighting method but I'll have to look into it. Same with the reef roids. I'll definitely give you a shout if I have some questions
Your tank is too small for an anemone AND corals... don't do it! They will permanently be engaging in chemical allelopathy (aka 'chemical warfare'). All corals do it to a greater or lesser degree... but it's accentuated with corals vs. anemones. Plus, the anemone has a tendency to move around and 'park itself' on the corals... killing them.
Jason mack
Monti madness
https://www.reef2reef.com/members/pongpit.78389/ It is possible to have a successful 20g reef tank ,and smaller ..
