When to add Mushroom Coral

[Freyr]

I've had my tank up for a week with some clowns and liverock and I'm interested in getting some coral. The guy at the LFS said to wait awhile, but he said with me lighting and tank size(15 gal) some mushroom coral would be ok. How long should I wait before getting some?

Thanks.

 

[kwiker]

It depends on your water parmaters. I think you wait until nitrites are at 0 and nitrates are below 20, don't quote me on this. Anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong. My tank took about 2 1/2 weeks to cycle. Some tanks take longer and some are shorter. Take a water sample to your local fish store and have them test it for you.

 

[Freyr]

I bought live sea sand for the setup, so it has already been cycled and the parameters look good. Think the corals will be okay?

 

[kwiker]

Introduce one at a time, and give it time before adding something else. Start with something cheap.

 

[Justin74]

If you have a fish swimming in there and it appears to be healthy then your good to go with some shrooms. There pretty hardy, Ive had my whole tank wiped out by an ammonia spike once and my shrooms and button polyps were the only thing that made it, and they were under normal output lighting to boot in a 1watt per gallon tank!

-Justin

 

[Sk8r]

I had discosomas come in on my live rock, and they survived being transported in open air (not my doing), being set into raw sandy icecold saltwater (I didn't pick that one either) and sent through the cycle...(that, I was in charge of.) They've now grown and are multiplying quite nicely.

 

[sharky_steve]

Mushrooms are incredibly hardy. In fact, people had noted they tend to do better in tanks without skimmers (because of the higher nutrient content), so as long as you keep the NH3 and NO2 spikes from getting too dramatic (i.e. don't overfeed the fish) you should be fine.