New to soft corals Need direction

[Vrod2169]

So my 300 has been a fowlr tank for 22 years now. Just upgraded lights to
Led last year and ready to try soft corals. Where can I go to learn more about
Lighting requirements, dosing pumps etc to sustain soft corals, etc LFS tested water and said all parameters were good except Alk which was at 6 and have me adding small amounts of Red Sea foundation KH/Alkalinity "B" additive and going back every 3 days. Today the test showed it at the same level so dosage was increased to 22ml for next 2 days and a check on Friday again. Appreciate any input and direction.

 

[djryan2000]

New to soft corals Need direction

So my 300 has been a fowlr tank for 22 years now. Just upgraded lights to

Led last year and ready to try soft corals. Where can I go to learn more about

Lighting requirements, dosing pumps etc to sustain soft corals, etc LFS tested water and said all parameters were good except Alk which was at 6 and have me adding small amounts of Red Sea foundation KH/Alkalinity "B" additive and going back every 3 days. Today the test showed it at the same level so dosage was increased to 22ml for next 2 days and a check on Friday again. Appreciate any input and direction.

I'd recommend YouTube. Just type
In "œbeginner corals" and a lot of "œtop 10s" will pop up. The channel Tidal gardens also has videos dedicated to a lot of different corals.

Softies don't need a lot of light or flow compared to LPS or SPS. You probably won't need dosing pumps either - they don't have hard exoskeletons to draw calcium / alkalinity / magnesium out of the water. They use very minimal amounts of these elements.

Typically people replenish these elements via water changes with softies. If you don't do water changes (considering the size of your system) id monitor your parameters and if you do end up needing to add calcium / alkalinity R2R is a great forum to look up options of dosing - ie what you're doing / two part / calcium reactor. I don't think you'll need to worry about those very much though.

 

[garygonzales]

+1 on What he said. .^^^^

 

[Scrubber_steve]

So my 300 has been a fowlr tank for 22 years now. Just upgraded lights to
Led last year and ready to try soft corals. Where can I go to learn more about
Lighting requirements, dosing pumps etc to sustain soft corals, etc LFS tested water and said all parameters were good except Alk which was at 6 and have me adding small amounts of Red Sea foundation KH/Alkalinity "B" additive and going back every 3 days. Today the test showed it at the same level so dosage was increased to 22ml for next 2 days and a check on Friday again. Appreciate any input and direction.

Don't know if you had much coralline algae growing prior to new LED lights being installed ???

If not, you may get a lot growing & coralline can assimilate a lot of calcium & alk. You may want to monitor those, & possibly start dosing to keep your water at NSW values.

Some softies will use the elements a little to produce tiny calcite spicules embedded in their soft bodies. Calcareous sponges also produce spicules built of calcit

Skeleton formation in soft corals and calcareous sponges


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