New to coral need help!

[tref2010]

I have a tank that has finished cycling and I am looking into adding coral. Which coral would be the best for a beginner and what should my water parameters be?

Currently my parameters are:

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 (or very close to it)
Nitrate: 10 ppm ( Is this high? )
Salinity: 1.022
Temp: 76 F

My light is a few years old, should I replace it?

I have a pump that has adjustable water flow (Low to high).

My tank is 10 gallons.
I do not yet have a protein skimmer, should I buy one?

 

[tref2010]

anyone?

 

[Lorenz725]

What kind of light do you have? What kind of coral do you want? Soft, LPS, SPS? What kind of fish are you going to add if any?

 

[tref2010]

What kind of light do you have? What kind of coral do you want? Soft, LPS, SPS? What kind of fish are you going to add if any?

currently I have one small clownfish and some red legged hermits. What does LPS and SPS stand for? I am not sure how many watts the light is. I will replace it today. How many watts should it be?

 

[Lorenz725]

LPS= Large Polyp Stony coral. SPS= Small Polyp Stony coral. I think what you need to do is a google search and find out more info on what you want to do. For a beginner i would say start out with soft corals. For soft corals and even most LPS you should be fine with a 2 bulb T5 HO fixture. I am not a expert by any means but you can find a lot of info just by doing a easy search online. Good luck

 

[Steveb]

Please don't take this as being rude or putting you off but I don't think you posted this in the right forum. You should probably ask the moderators to move this thread to the "New To The Hobby" forum. You will receive a lot of answers to your basic coral husbandry questions there.

 

[jeff@zina.com]

You want nitrates lower, as close to 0 as possible. Salinity higher, 1.25. Start with a mushroom, xenia or Kenya tree.

Jeff


Text mangled by iPhone spell check...

 

[tomsfish]

I would go with mushrooms or any leather corals as they are the easiest. I personally have no luck with Xenia for some reason, they just melt away on me.

 

[jake levi]

new to corals

new to corals

a ten gallon is pretty small to keep stable, with one clown now I wouldnt add much more then a couple mushrooms, or green star Polyps, you would be much better off to get a 20H , easier to cycle and keep stable. I use 20Hs for pairs but they are on a recirculating system.

Repost this to the New in Hobby section and you will get a LOT of responses.

Good luck.

 

[tref2010]

Thanks everyone. Sorry about the wrong section. Ill work on my nitrates first off.