How long should I wait before introducing corals?

[ecstranz]

I have a 60 gallon saltwater aquarium that has been up and running for six months. I have about 30 to 40 lbs of cured live rock and a few damsels. The guy at the aquarium shop sold me on calcium, magnesium and PH increaser additives and said it should be at least a month and half of adding these before I add any corals. I tested my tank water and my Calcium looks good, the PH is a little low at 8.2, alkalinity is good, salinity is just right. Should I really wait that long?

On another question, which corals should I add that are low maintenance and don't require special diet's (Other than the additives mentioned)?

 

[Coralobsessed]

Add coral whenever you want at this point...start with mushrooms and some Zoanthids. They are easy to keep. Good luck.

 

[drej424]

+1 . Zoos and mushrooms are great to start with. What kind of lighting are you using?

 

[loqix]

mushrooms and zoas are a good start!

 

[dkeller_nc]

I'm guessing that the person at the LFS was suggesting such a long wait to give you practice at doing the testing and dosing the additives to keep the water chemistry stable rather than letting the actual tank stabilize.

Generally speaking, reagents used to adjust calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, etc... only take an hour or so to get completely mixed in the aquarium water so that you can re-test.

I'd look through the forum's tanks-of-the-month and so-called "build threads" to determine what you'd like in your tank. There are many easy-to-keep corals in every class (SPS, LPS, Soft, etc...), and there are difficult to keep corals in every class.

As mentioned, non-stony photosynthetic polyp corals like mushrooms, zoanthids, palythoas, colonial anemones, are some of the least demanding of what is commonly kept in saltwater reef tanks, but that's assuming your equipment is up to the task (skimmer, lighting, water movement, etc...).

 

[reefshadow]

First of all, your pH is not at all low. Mine runs pretty steadily at 7.9-8.0 and everything is happy and thriving. I would recommend reading up on the potential problems caused by "chasing pH". Since it is intimately tied to Alk levels, you could be inadvertently driving your Alk up to super high levels by chasing your pH around, in turn skewing you Ca in the process. Only test and supplement for Ca and Alk, everything else will follow. Supplement according to your tested parameters, NOT directions on a bottle. The chemistry forum is a great place to start.

Second, six months is more than enough time if your chemistry is in line with NSW values, and light and flow is up to par.

A good place to start with corals would be zoanthids or corallimorphs, like mushroom corals. See how they do for a couple of weeks then add more of what you like. Research here or elsewhere on the net prior to making purchases. I would stay away from SPS and some LPS until you have a good handle on how to test and supplement your tank and your other corals are thriving.

HTH, and have fun!

 

[loqix]

yea i agree, my ph is @ 8.0 a little over, but my Alkalinity is @ 11. If i add ph buffer it will most prob spike my Alk.

 

[ecstranz]

Hardware spec's on tank

Hardware spec's on tank

I have a 4' T5 lamp with 2 HO 12,000k lamps and 2 24w acintic lamps and then the night LED's. I also have a 750gph power head and 1 550 gph power head. I have an aquarium Systems "hang on the side" protein skimmer with 295 gph pump. I'm new to the forum and have to add these to my profile.

Thanks for the suggestion on not following the bottle dosage suggestions! The PH tester is recommending that reef corals like higher PH around 8.4 but you guys are proof that isn't true. Maybe perhaps a few select corals are that way.

Are there any recommendations to adding the supplements? What I mean is do you just measure with the capper and dump it in directly or do you mix with water and dump the water in?

 

[reefshadow]

I have a 4' T5 lamp with 2 HO 12,000k lamps and 2 24w acintic lamps and then the night LED's. I also have a 750gph power head and 1 550 gph power head. I have an aquarium Systems "hang on the side" protein skimmer with 295 gph pump. I'm new to the forum and have to add these to my profile.

Thanks for the suggestion on not following the bottle dosage suggestions! The PH tester is recommending that reef corals like higher PH around 8.4 but you guys are proof that isn't true. Maybe perhaps a few select corals are that way.

Are there any recommendations to adding the supplements? What I mean is do you just measure with the capper and dump it in directly or do you mix with water and dump the water in?

The chemistry forum will send you in really useful directions for supplementation.

If you have a sump, you can add directly to a high flow area if the supplement is already liquid. If it's a powder, it should be dissolved in RODI.

For what it's worth, there are much cheaper ways to supplement for Alk/Ca/pH than products bought at the LFS. Lots of recipes in the chem forum, but a quick rundown:

Mrs Wages pickling lime IS kakwasser

Baking soda or baked baking soda IS the same as any alk supplement

Many sources of Ca supplement out there, like Prestone driveway heat IS pure Ca chloride; AKA any Ca supplement on the shelf.

Always test prior to and after any additions of chemicals

HTH!

 

[dkeller_nc]

It looks like your equipment is up to snuff, with one possible exception - do you have a water purifier? It's possible to keep a reef with purchased distilled water from the grocery store (I've done it this way, believe it or not) or water purchased from your LFS. But it's a heck of a lot easier and a lot cheaper in the long run to just get a RO/DI system.

I'm thinking from the HOB skimmer that you don't have a sump. If that's the case, I would encourage you to make a drip jug - you simply cut a small hole in the side of a 1/2 gallon plastic vinegar jug, and glue a plastic air-line needle valve into the hole. Attach a 5" piece of airline tubing to that, and you have a drip jug. Mixing up your calcium and alkalinity supplements in purified water and dripping them into you tank or your skimmer will be far safer than just dumping them in.

By the way, if you don't have a sump, never add "kalkwasser" powder to your tank, and never add kalkwasser mixed with water directly to your tank. Kalkwasser must be allowed to settle, and either dripped into the tank via the afore-mentioned drip jug, or added via slow peristaltic pump.

 

[ecstranz]

Wow those a great suggestions. No I don't have a sump. One day I'll graduate up to that level but I think I'll just buy a used system on Craigslist with a sump already predrilled. I also don't have a water purifier and have got along so far with tap water combined with fish store saltwater. That doesn't mean that all is good, just trying to get along as inexpensive as I can right now as I blew my budget on live rock, skimmers and power heads. I haven't really had a problem with the tap water in regards to the fish as they seemed pretty resilient but the algae blooms were much higher until my tank finally equalized probably due to high nitrates ( I didn't have a nitrate test kit when I started, I do now) We relocated three weeks ago to Apex, NC and I bought 20 gallons of saltwater from the store and used my existing tank water to supplement the rest and noticed a large improvement in the Algae blooms.

The reason I ask about the adding the chemicals is that once I started to consider the idea of adding corals I bought the PH increaser, Magnesium and Calcium additives. All liquid. I added one dose on a Saturday per the directions and one dose on the following Wednesday. On Thursday I had three damsels dead! I was very concerned about the tank measurements but the Calcium, Nitrates, PH, amonia all read perfectly. I even took a sample into the store and they said my water looks great.

Long story short, The last suggestion was a great one with a drip system because at this point I am assuming dumping the small capfuls directly into the tank may have been the problem. Lesson learned : (

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will go to the Chemical Forum's a read up there as well.

 

[dkeller_nc]

You are in luck, in a way. Apex has a combined water treatment plant with Cary (I live in Raleigh, NC BTW), and typically the water is quite soft, so there's little in the way of dissolved compounds in it. This is assuming that you are on the municipal system, not a well.

Either way, you shouldn't use tap water as evaporation make-up. There are two potential problems: accumulation of ionic substances (sodium, potassium, manganese, magnesium, iron, etc...) and if you're on the municipal system, chloramine.

If you're on the municipal system, accumulation of ionic substances will be much slower than if you're on a well because the municipal systems around here supply water that is quite soft (low total dissolved solids). However, you're still going to wind up with an incorrect balance of salts in your tank water over time, since the dissolved ionic substances in tapwater don't match the ratios in seawater.

Chloramine is deadly to any aquarium inhabitants (freshwater or saltwater). And while you can neutralize the immediately toxic effects of chloramine with Amquel or something similar, the nitrogenous compounds that remain after neutralization are still fertilizers, which isn't good for a marine tank.

Bottom line - either purchase your water from The Fish Room in Cary (only local store I know of that's close to you that sells RODI), or stretch your budget and buy a basic RODI system that is designed to deal with chloramines.

By the way - there's an even better reef shop in Clayton called ReefKeepers. The owner really knows what he's doing, and has some spectacular display tanks, but it'll be a little bit of a drive for you from Apex. Full disclosure: I have no connection to either Reefkeepers or The Fish Room other than being a frequent customer.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Also - the only thing I can think of that might've caused your damsel's deaths in your list of additives is the pH Increaser. If too high a dose was added, it may have really jacked up the pH in a short time period. Most saltwater critters can handle a fairly wide pH range centered around 8.2 so long as it's stable, but they can't handle rapid changes.

 

[ecstranz]

Thanks for the input. A lot of my items, advice etc.. were received from the Fish Room as well as Petco. I will check out ReefKeepers this weekend. I'm excited to see a real good fish store.

I got your message on the local fish store issues and will definitely take that into consideration, for some reason I couldn't reply to that message. Not sure why.

I will put water filtration system at the top of my list. I actually moved from Cary to Apex so pretty much staying on the same system it sounds like. It could be why things haven't gotten too far out of hand. Nice to have some local folks on here : )

 

[loqix]

ecstranz, you should look into the CPR Aquafuge hob refugium. I have the biggest one they carry w/o the skimmer. Its amazing! It holds about 5g and you can keep a sandbed and cheato.

All my corals look amazing!