coral advice please

[robz]

I have finished my nitrogen cycle. Thank God! Any advice on what to start out with in the tank for corals. My nitrate is 12.5. Is that acceptable for corals? I have 1 175 watt Mh 10k and one 96 watt Pc actenic thanks Rob

[ruhspolostar]

w/ your lights I am guessing you want to go w/ hard corals and not softies? & if you want hard coral what kind

i.e. SPS

& try to get the nitrates down

[Mrs Smith]

Hey Rob,
If your nitrate is 12.5, you're not quite done... but well on the way.

I'd wait until it was completely down to zero before adding much. And then go verrrry slowly. Seriously. The slower you go, the better chance things will make it. It's painful waiting, but patience is sooo important. Your tank will go through a lot of changes in the next 6 months, and it can take even longer than that to be truly stable.

Just my 2c,
Danielle

PS. How big is your tank? I missed the details.

[robz]

my tank is a 55 gal. sea clear system 2. I have a 10 gal fuge on the side with 4in. DSB AND I am going bare bottom in the tank. I am going very slowly. Tomorrow or so I will add perhaps another 10 or 15 lbs of live robk. Most of it in the tank right now is just white dead base rock. However it is allready getting good green alge growth on it. The nasty brown algee only hung around for 4 or 5 days thanks to my clean up crew and good husbandry on my part. in the tank right now all I have is 4 turbo snails, six hermit crabs, one chromas small, and one very large and cool Maroon clown named Coral Oh ya and one good sized Electric Blue Hermit Crab Rare and cool. Thanks for advice I really appriceate and use it. Skimmer will be added soon. Oh ya one medium sized green star polyup colony. Any advice on how to get the nitrate to come down more?

[tims]

Rob, if you are going to put more LR in.. you can cause a mini cycle to happen each time.. is this LR already cured?..this will make you levels go high again.. water chenges will help your levels

[hitillidie]

Yea, water change, and don't add anymore fish. Allow your tanks ecosystem to build up.

[Xerxies]

definately finish adding your rock and then re-cycle before adding corals.

corals are expensive, and of course, alive. you wouldn't wanna go buy a bunch and then watch them all die

your lighting: you only have enough light to succesfully grow softies right now, but you have the wrong combination. you'll want either more of the same lighting (wattage) for Stonies, or go with what you got (wattage) but add a little more blue to the mix for softies, try for 50/50 - 10K/actinic blue.

your question: what corals to get for a new tank with 12.5ppm nitrate? Jakarta Xenia. it's hardy, interesting to watch, and it eats those nitrates like the diet starts tomorrow