softies for my 55

[tagraham]

alright i need advice on some super easy and hardy soft corals to keep in a 55 gallon. with 60 lbs of lr and 60 lbs of ls. no room for a sump so i have a canister for chem filtering and some lr rubble in it. i have a hob fuge and a hob skimmer. right now it is cycling. almost done with that.


as for lighting i have a temporary NO 10,000 k corallife floresent and a NO coralife actinic.

i will eventually go vho t5 but is there anything that will do well under what i have for now

 

[eddie c]

how many watts of lighting is that?

 

[tagraham]

80

 

[eddie c]

thats not even 1.5 watts per gallon, thats really not enough for even the easiest of them like xenia, mushrooms, gsp, leathers, i would just wait until you upgrade the lights, the corals and you will be much happier.

 

[spence0416]

You might be able to go for some Sun Corals although they are hardly considered a beginner coral. However with proper husbandry and regular feedings it should work as they are non-photosynthetic.

 

[spence0416]

Here is some good info on the suncoral:

http://www.melevsreef.com/suncoral.html

 

[tagraham]

yeah i better just wate untill the lighting upgrades it should be about 6 months i dont have the time for a wile i just got accepted into swat so im going off to swat training in 2 weeks

 

[PacificBlueReef]

I used a 4 foot shop light with the same bulbs you have for a long time. I did not have any problems keeping Discoma sp. mushrooms. I also had some GSP growth with that setup.

 

[proboscis]

i have just set up a BB 55g with 50-60 lbs live rock from a previous 3 yr old tank i took out all of my soft corals from my other tanks and put it into this 55g
i paid 100$ for the 55g tank & stand
had 2/55 watt p.c. fixtures hangin around garage so i bought 2 new 10k p.c. bulbs ($50)
i also added a 20w N.O. actintic bulb on a seprate timer for dawn/dusk ($18)
IMO, Keep it simple i am running 130 watts of light
for flow im using 2/ maxi jet 900 at opposite ends of tank blowing into the middle
filtration is a hang on back filter with 2 carbon slip ins
i am keeping leathers, mushrooms, zooanthids, blastomussa, xenia, campenella, (things that are wavy with the current and look nice flowing back and forth)
when i bought the tank it came with a heater and some fish ( maroon clown, coral beauty angel, 2 blue damsels, koran angel(RIP) died in the tank move from previous owner house to my house ( all fish had lateral head erosion ) so they were all in bad shape when i acquried them half starved, now they are well on there way to making a come back and colors are increasing almost daily. i change 5 gallons of water per week when i change the other tanks. top off as R.O. needed i add 1 drop of lugols iodine evry week too keep the soft corals nice and big, this tank is easier to take care of than my freshwater cichlids and never gets algae growth. i run a magnet on the glass when needed but rare, my clean up crew is 1 large blue leg hermit. IMO keep it simple, sounds like your off to a good start let it cycle while your away and get nice and stable and get some fauna growth into your sand bed if at all possible get a few cups of sand from other reefers and seed your sand bed for more diversity. i spent less than 200$ for my reef but i had alot to begin with ( corals, power heads, rock, ) good luck happy reefing