Need some help with reef tank setup

[Cuzzoo]

My current setup is too young to have anything really cool to speak of. I will say this, though…never try to alter or cater the flow of your aquarium to appease a particular/new coral. The exact opposite is true for successful tanks. Create a stable environment with multiple “flow zones”, and place the corals/inhabitants in their niche area. I crashed quite a few corals recently by breaking my own rule…never change the tank to suit a coral.

Thank you for that tip , I’ll make sure to always keep that in mind!!! What do you mean by “ crashed corals “?

 

[T Diddy]

Thank you for that tip , I’ll make sure to always keep that in mind!!! What do you mean by “ crashed corals “?

Once you have established your water flow scheme, the corals will grow according to their environment ie. lighting and flow (among other things). A coral/colony can and will crash and burn if the conditions in which it grew are suddenly and permanently altered.
Branching corals tend to grow compact and tight structures in relatively high flow environments. If by changing/moving pumps to suit the new coral frag you just bought, you may just create dead zones/ stagnant areas within those tightly structured colonies. That is a recipe for disaster, and you may just lose entire colonies as a result. Then, a cascade of suffering can ensue as a result of ammonia buildup.
My current setup began with the hope of having an SPS dominated rock scape…the entire tank was running as a high flow system. Then, I decided that I just had to have this beautiful teal colored hammer coral…big mistake. I reduced the flow of the whole tank trying to find a happy place for the hammer. I lost several of my absolute favorite pieces as a result.

 

[T Diddy]

Another thing to consider is the growth over time. Your corals themselves will ultimately restrict water flow as they grow larger. To maintain their needs, you could upgrade to a larger version of the pumps they started with. Perhaps a better option for maintaining their preferred environment over time is to add strategically placed smaller pumps in addition to the existing original ones. Hope this helps!

 

[Cuzzoo]

I’ll definitely keep all that in mind and thank you that has helped a lot and gave me a better way to think about it! All the corals seem to be doing good in my tank , just the hammer hasn’t really opened back up much since I glued it to a frag plug to be able to sit in my frag rack. I’m gonna get some raw shrimp and chop it up real fine and feed it to the hammer and rock flower anemone. My buddy said it might be hungry and he had a hammer that was hungry act how mine is and when he fed it. It open back up fully.