Best recipe for success?

[ozorowsky]

Hi all,

What is the best recipe for success to have a thriving reef? I have a 340 gallon I'm starting up, and I know all the basics, but what are the key things to really make this thing thrive. I usually buy 1 or 2 headed torches here and there, but hope in a year or two these heads will become 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16 and so on.

I ensure my ammonia/nitrate/nitrite are 0, temp around 76 degrees, salinity 1.024, what are other key elements to keep the corals happy and promote growth?

I use RO+DI water, a bio pellet reactor to keep phosphates down, curious what other key elements I may be missing.

Thanks in advance!

 

[mcgyvr]

stable parameters, proper lighting and good flow..

 

[duncanpate1]

stable parameters, proper lighting and good flow..

Yup


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[ozorowsky]

Thanks but I'm not sure when to worry about things like dkh iodine and the like. Also not sure if ishould be feeding reef roids or any other special sauce they sell. Just want to see this reef grow out

 

[saf1]

Keep your hands out of the tank and keep it simple.

 

[ali1]

Plan for worst case scenarios. Power outages, return pump failure, etc.

Thats really the key difference. Anyone can keep a reef 1-2 yrs, its maintaining that for 5-10 yrs

 

[ozorowsky]

I have dedicated ups for tank. Will keep one powergead running over two hours. Anything else essential to run if short power outage?

How about food? I feed different frozen food to the tank 3x a day. Brine mysis etc.

Also going now to buy copepods to put in chaeto let them grow out as i eventually want a green mandarin.

Do i need to buy reef roids or any of the other fancy stuff i keep seeing?

 

[Haunt]

Patience... If your in it for the long haul bad things will happen, but you just need to carry on... It's like math, at first it's difficult, but after awhile it's just common knowledge. Everything will start to add up. GL.