Feeding Coral?

[Sand $]

In my tank I currently have mostly soft coral. I have two Montiporas that have been up and down (I have been monitoring calcium closer things are better now). I would like to get more into sps's. Should I be feeding them anything? I would like to start filling my tank with more stonies what should I know before I start? (I change at least 10 gallons every 7-10 days)

Thanks,
Brett

Tank Specs: Est. April 1, 2007
90 Gallon all-Glass Aquarium with built-in over flow
95 lbs rock
sand / crushed shell base
2 - 250w dei metal halides w/10k bulbs (5 hrs)
2- 46.5" super actinic VHO's (10 hrs)
20 led moon lights
mag 24 pump
over flow through filter sock / 30 gallon sump
red sea skimmer
2- maxi jet 1200
1 - koralia 2

Live stock:
blue hippo tang
pair false percs
fox face
gr. chromis
royal gramma
blue leg crabs

Mushrooms: neon gr., blue stripe,red, orange,green fuzzy
Xenia
Gr. star polyps
Frogspawn
red motipora
green montipora
Purple frilly gorgonia

[luvmylo]

personally if I were planning on doing some of the more difficult sps: acro, mirulina, stuff like that I would monitor the monti's for a while just to make sure everythings stable. Monti's are relatively easy (as far as sps goes) to take care of. Also you might wanna look at a different skimmer. Is that the red sea prizm??

[Bender 2]

Luvmylo has a good point monitoring the monti for a while. Your tank is still very young and has a healthy bioload already. You may want to wait a while before adding harder to keep corals. Let the tank settle in and mature a little. Of course this is just my opinion.

[Sand $]

I am waiting to add others, but I am impatient. I am trying to do some home work before adding more. The skimmer is a Red Sea Berlin Turbo XL

[bklynmet]

You can add whatever corals you want - but you may see some die in front of you if your tank is not ready for it. Stability is KEY with SPS. I can control how cool the tank gets but not how warm and consequently a good deal of my SPS have gone downhill. Other things you need to consider keeping stable:
Specific Gravity - this means ATO or very diligent manual top off.
Ammonia, Nitrites - need to be non-existant.
Nitrates - need to be less than 5ppm for some 'SPS'
Photoperiod - lights need to be on a timer
Temperature - heaters, coolers, fans, chillers, air conditioning - whatever will get you stable water temps with little hourly fluctuation.
Calcium - try not to let it get below 400ppm, (375 if supplementing calcium through water changes only)
Magnesium - keep at roughly 3 times your calcium level
Alkalinity - No less than 7dKh - with around 9dKh preferred
pH (this fluctuates during the day and after water changes as well. That is OK. However, you should monitor the pH so it is in a certain range daily with a calibrated pH meter)

You may be thinking that this is a royal PITA. The more stable you tank parameters are, the more successful you will be long term, IMO.

[bklynmet]

Oh, wrt your tank.. It's young. Be patient with adding livestock - fish and corals included. IMO, that's a lot of fish load for a 90g that and the corals you want to keep. Let your tank's biological process settle for at least 6 more months before adding more load. A more efficient skimmer can expand your tank's bioload capacity, IMO.

[Sand $]

Thanks bklynmet, Not really a PITA, well not for me any way my now my wife would disagree. The tank is in my basement famliy room temp is pretty consistent. Basicaly all of the "Bad Stuff" phosphates, nitrates, ect. are non existant I think due to dilagent water changes. I have never monitered magnesium. I do suppliment calcium and use Reef Crystals.

[Sand $]

What would be a good skimmer for my tank?

[grallster]

Well if you are testing your water and everything looks good and you're doing water changes--the skimmer you have now is fine. Keep in mind though, the more corals and fish you add and the more they are fed and grow--the more your skimmer will have to keep up with. At that point, you'll either have to do alot more water changes or get a better skimmer.

I agree too that you should watch the montis you have and see how they do. If you must try other SPS get a frag from someone that is at least 2nd generation captive raised as these are much hardier.

[Sand $]

Thanks Dave, I am waiting a while to add more. It was tuff last week when I saw the frags that you had on ebay I wanted to buy about four of them.

Brett

[grallster]

Just watch your montis for a couple of weeks. If they do fine, then you will be ready for tank raised frags IMO.

[lostwhirley]

The only glaring thing I see is...

Are you using RO/DI water?

I dose only Limewater. Nothing else. Works wonders...

$2.67 at walmart per can, you really can't beat that!!!

[Sand $]

I have well water that goes through a water softener and then an RO filter. Back to the original question do corals need food or is good water quality good enough?

[grallster]

With all the stuff that goes on in your tank (feeding fish, detritus, fish pooping, etc.) you're feeding the coral even if you don't realize it. Other than that, you don't need to feed SPS and softies. LPS benefit from feeding more IMO.
Now whether it is beneficial if not necessary is another matter though...

[bklynmet]

Dave said it pretty well.