Adding Soft Corals

Sparty00

New member
How soon after a cycle can you start adding corals?

Are their better types to add in the beginning?

My plan is to have mainly soft corals as I am not planning on upgrading my lighting to MH for sometime.
 
Hey Sparty I am in New Baltimore, MI. What LFS are you using?
Is it the 65 gallon you are talking about in you sig? You have enough rock and sand? Have you gone through a cycle that has had a spike in ammonia and nitrates and are now at zero? If so have you done the first water change to bring your nitrates down. Do you have a CUC?

WHEW!!!!
Your first soft corals most likely should be like mushroom, zoanthids, green start polyps.

How about some pics?
 
Hi Henry.

As far as pic's I will try to get some posted although right now my camera does a horrible job taking pictures.

It is 65 gal, I put in 60lbs. cured Live Rock that was quite porous, I also added 35lbs. of base rock.

I never really had an actual cycle probably due to the fact I had cured LR. I have been testing my water parameters at least every other day. Below are the results of those tests.

Am - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrates - 20


Nitrates were about 40 one week after I added the LR and Sand. Am & Trites have been 0 in all of my testing. I have performed several water changes to help reduce trates. One 20%, followed by two 10% water changes. Two weeks after setup I posted and based on recommendations decided to add some food to help with cycle. Once again saw no spike in either Am or Nitrites.

I added 2 Chromis 10 days ago, and been testing water parameters each day and during my tests did not see any spike in Am or Nitrites.

I started testing for Calcium recently and my reading for that is 390.

I am currently using KEE's as LFS, also have been to I believe Moby Dick's as well in Waterford.

Hope this answered most of your questions...
 
Also will add that I have begun to add cleaning crew. Have added the following thus far.

30 Blue Leg Hermits
4 Mexican Turbo Snails
 
Sounds like you are doing okay. Start with something small, acouple of zoanthids and mushrooms. Then sit back and contiune to do some testing. If all is going well in a couple of weeks then you can add some other corals. I like Kee's, nice and clean, good family atmosphere but kind of expensive. the have the one frag tank that sits in the middle of the room on the left where you can usally find some decent frags for $15.00 a bpc. I would start there if I were you. Another store to try is Reales Reef in the shopping center on the southwest corner of 22 mile and Hayes. He has a small frag tank in the back that usually has some fairly inexpensive frags in it. He has also hosted some frag swaps where you can go to get some good deals.
 
Re: Adding Soft Corals

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9825556#post9825556 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparty00
How soon after a cycle can you start adding corals?

Are their better types to add in the beginning?

My plan is to have mainly soft corals as I am not planning on upgrading my lighting to MH for sometime.
Corals do not put much load on a system and so they can go in within 30 day of cycle if you are inclined to do so.

I would start with maybe mushrooms or Zoanthids. Mushrooms are probably one of the easiest to take care of.

Leathers are pretty hardy but they can cause aleopathy issues later (chemical warefar) if you have any LPS/SPS additions IME.

and dont forget to post pics :)
 
I agree. As long as the sytem is totally stable and has been for a couple weeks you are ok to start adding corals. Like Randall said, add the most hearty corals on your list first and take it from there. Monitor their progress and if everything looks/tests good then go ahead with the rest of your stocking list. ;)
 
Just keep in mind that if you are adding corals now with the intention of adding further livestock later, such as more fish, do this slowly. Corals dobn't add much bioload, but the fish will. And if your tank gets overloaded quickly, amminoa or nitrite and nitrates may rise, these can harm delicate corals.
 
Here are a couple of pic's, I know they are a little blurry, but it will give you a general idea....

Welcome any comments...go easy on me though :)

Full Tank Photo

100_1555.jpg


Left Side Closeup

IMG]http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u105/sparty00/100_1569.jpg[/IMG]

Right Side Closeup

100_1561.jpg
 
hey btw where did you get your rock from? That stuff is ultra light and very porous. Some of the best stuff I have seen but I never know what it is being sold as. Thanks

Here is 10lbs of the stuff I used for a 60G column tank a while back. (wet this stuff is around 55lbs) I purchased it as dead reef bones and it fit in 2 five gallon salt buckets (well sort of)

normal_DSCN2159.JPG
 
Hi Randall,

Got that rock from LFS, it was sold as Fiji Premium Cured LR. The more I look at it, I think it is the same as some of the "Fused" Fiji LR I have seen online.

It is extremely light and porous, and so far I am very happy with it. My only complaint has been that several of the peices were fairly brittle and I broke a couple during my aquascaping which I have changed about 6 times already.

I am in Michigan, if you want specifics for the store let me know.
 
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