Corals and waterchanges

TjwBlake

New member
This is really just a general inquiry i have. I am in the process of putting together some plans for a new tank in the next few months and was just thinking of my scape and placement of future corals... Still very new to the coral keeping as well

Just wondering about placeing coral and when I do my water changes, can they be exposed to air for short periods? or should I plan to have them placed to keep them submerged while changing water?
 
Is this an AIOor a tank with a sump? Overflows? Drilled? You shouldn't have to lower the DT water level too far to do a decnt water change. I have some mushrooms that poke out of the water in my solana AIO and 8 gal biocube. But the 125, ican cut the power to the returns and take 10% out of the sump easily.
 
oh good point on the sump...i never even thought of that

It is going ot be a 30gallon breeder, pre drilled. Details beyond that are sketchy as it is still big time in the planning stage.

Like I said, this is more of a curiousity thing to give me some ideas and direction as I put everything together.
 
If the power fails in my aquarium all my top corals are partially out of the water. They were out for an hour once.
 
While it is better to keep the corals under water during a water change, most corals will tolerate a short period out of water. I have a couple of Acros near the top of my tank and when I don't trim them back, they will be partially exposed to air during water changes. They slime up for a few minutes, but recover shortly after being re-submerged.
 
I believe they should be fine out of the water for a little. i don't think you will be taking that long to do a change. It's not like your going to leave them out for hours on end.
 
The tank is a 30 gallon?
Just do a small water change once and a while. Like a half gallon or less, the smaller the better.

How much are you going to change at one time?
 
Thanks for the thoughts all!

And I have no idea how much will be changed, like i said this is just a pre planning stage right now... i dont phycially have the tank or anything to do with the tank just yet. This is just about quenching my curiousity is all
 
In the wild, lots of corals go through "low-tide" conditions where they are exposed for relatively long periods of time. When doing water changes, I have a few softies and zoas that are exposed to the air for about 30-45 minutes. IME, I haven't had problems.
 
Cool deal, looks like I wont worry much about it, though I'll do my best to minimize it hehe. can't wait to get this new tank up and running
 
like this?


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no problem :)
 
The acros in the top of my tank get full exposed to air for around 10 minutes or so durning water changes and it doesn't seem to bother them. I do turn the lights off so they are not baking under the bulbs
 
I would start thinking about what type of corals you want. That will dictate what type of flow you will have and how clean the water needs to be.

I have a 30 gallon tank with a sump and I change out 5 gallons of water twice per week. But I'm crazy like that. With a small tank, you can afford to change out more water.
 
Oh for sure, the corals are in the pipe for planning... definately going to be a small zoa garden (i have a couple aready in my BC8 that are doing amazing), a few mushrooms thats about as far as it has gotten.
Ill be putting off the high needs corals for a while though
 
When I planned mine out, it was going to be mainly LPS with a few SPS. I underestimated the ability of my lights and my tank flow. My LPS were shrinking even 16" below the water surface, so I had to move them closer to the bottom. Because of that, I'll be adding more SPS than I originally thought. Which means my water needs to be cleaner, which means more frequent water changes. The sps I have in my tank are growing much faster than my LPS/zoas.

With zoas and mushrooms, you can have a pretty lax water change schedule as long as you don't overfeed and get algae blooms.
 
yeah when I do water changes I like to take out a decent amount and my water exposes the tops of a few of my SPS at the top of the tank and it hasn't caused me any problems either. I wouldn't sweat it.
 
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