Too much or not enough coral, how do you tell?

F

Fmellish

New member
I have a new tank, about 6 months old.

It is doing well. I have had success with my corals and fish.

I just want some opinions on when do you know when to stop buying corals?

I look at my tank and it looks so sparse, but then I realize the coral frags i have will grow. Then I imagine the tank two years from now and it looks nice and filled out.

But I still have urges to buy more coral.

Can you overstock your tank with coral? And when do you know if you have enough coral?

For fish there are some guidlines, 4 gallons per inch of fish, etc.

Any ideas?

You can see pics of my tank at my red house icon, just use the month selector on the top of my website to go to a previous month. I didn't update the site this month.

Cheers
Josh
 
I don't think you can overstock as long as the corals have space to preventconflict. I have bought small frags at low prices and later decided they were not what I really wanted. As time goes on you will probably gravitate to a prticular type or decide to specialize. Some of the stuff you buy never looks like it did when you bought it for one reason or another. Some corals get overlarge or you just don't want that type or color any more, we have these great events called frag swaps!!
 
Pics, (if you didn't want to visit my website).


03122006_013.jpg



The front side
03282006_084.jpg



The backside
03282006_082.jpg
 
I say u can get more and frag sell/trade to keep those wild growing one under control

Sam
 
You can overstock corals and anyone that tells you that you cant you should not trust their advice. First off, corals engage in chemical warfare. This is the main problem with too many corals besides not leaving room for them to grow out healthy. Aggressive/over skimming and the use of carbon/polyfilters and weekly water changes can combat this chemical warfare, also called allelopath. You could use a couple more coral, but watch the anemone they will sting your corals and also watch out for the hammer or frogspawn with the xenia. It will kill it over a period of time. Also, if you want to engage in propagation then you may want to leave some room to let frags grow if you dont have a separate frag tank.
 
You get too many, you end up playing what I call coral chess---a game in which you try to move everything where it won't conflict with its neighbors or sit in the wrong lighting or wrong flow...just one injudiciously acquired piece can put you into this situation, sitting in the last available spot two corals need and only one can have.

And then you start having accidents. A coral breaks. You glue the frag to a base. You now have twice the coral you used to have and the ugly piece is too small yet to sell or trade, and they both need the same conditions.

Hold off before you reach all-squares-occupied.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7449685#post7449685 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by supernareg
LOL glaudds as if you need any more ;)
Click to expand...
Suurrre....you can always squeeze one more frag in. :D
 
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