Beginner To Adding Corals...How Many Can I Stock At Once?

[BigEZ77]

Hi All,

Tank has been up and running for a bit now. Put in CUC and a couple clowns last weekend, added a cleaner shrimp and a toadstool this weekend. I found a good deal from an online LFS who is highly recommended here in Canada and I'm hoping to save on shipping costs by ordering a few at once. Looking at ordering one or two zoa colonies, devil's hand, a regular mushroom, a hairy mushroom and a ricordea mushroom. Would love to have a xenia but read they can overrun my tank and are a pain to remove...too bad

My question is this...Is it too much for a new tank to handle to add 4-5 corals at once?

Thanks,

Russell

 

[westernpilot]

how big is your tank?

 

[thegrun]

Corals add very little to your bio-load, you would be fine adding those corals to your tank all at once. A trick to use with many of the invasive corals like xenia is to put them on an isolated rock surrounded by sand so you can trim off any corals if they start to spread across the sand.

 

[westernpilot]

+1 to above. I also have xenia and some green star polyps that I have given there own isolated rock to allow for it to be controlled.

 

[BigEZ77]

how big is your tank?

Its sold as a 45G AIO but really its 10 in the rear chamber and 30 in the main display.

Thanks for the Xenia suggestion. I will give that a try.

Should I be feeding these corals somehow? If so, what type and can I just feed a liquid food into the flow or should I feed them directly with a baster?

 

[westernpilot]

if you want to feed them it will help them grow much faster and possibly show better color. I use reef roids that I got from my lfs and just target feed with a turkey baster. corals seem to love it.

 

[BigEZ77]

if you want to feed them it will help them grow much faster and possibly show better color. I use reef roids that I got from my lfs and just target feed with a turkey baster. corals seem to love it.

Thanks, will see if my lfs has that.

 

[Sk8r]

THey're living filters. They help the tank rather than overload it. But they also grow like bandits if happy. Get a few widely separated, set them so they don't wiggle or wobble, and expect they MAY fill in the intervening space.

 

[BigEZ77]

Thanks Sk8r. BTW, I have learned a ton from your stickies while getting started in the hobby. Appreciate all the great info!