How long do you wait?

pnoy702 · 05-11-2004, 03:23 AM

After setting up your tank and having it go through a cycle, when do you start adding corals in?

Troi

wanareef · 05-11-2004, 04:14 AM

Welcome

You have to wait till your water-params are zero, sometime this takes a couple of weeks to several months. If you do your water changes along the way while cycling this will help. Also getting a cup of sand form fellow reefers or even a LFS will help to seed the tank.

Remember, patience is needed in this hobby, not only is it a spendy hobby, but it does add up if you loose all your animals.

stigmajones · 05-11-2004, 04:56 AM

Live coral, depending on what type could be added in quickly. But, it is not really a good idea unless you are independently wealthy or know what you are doing.

If you are just starting a tank there are a few things that you need to have in place before you can add coral.
1. Lighting- you need to have 3 to 5 watts per gal.
2. Filtration- reef tanks need good filtration- sump, skimmer
3. Live rock? 1.25 to 2 lbs per gal.
4. Water that has at least been thru a reverse osmosis filter.
5. All levels in your tank are checking out.

If you have all this in place then you could probably try to add some coral. I would start with something easy like a green star polyp. They eat phyto-plankton which you will add to the tanks water. You could also try a devils hand leather, they will grow like crazy. The devils leather needs a good light source and are very easy not to kill. Also do research on corals because some don't get along with other things you may want to add later down the road.

Please post your tank specs and let us know where you are in the steps listed above so we can point you in the right direction.

JennM · 05-11-2004, 08:06 AM

I respectfully disagree with some of these statements....

1. Lighting- you need to have 3 to 5 watts per gal.

Not so. It's less about wattage than it is about intensity, PAR and spectrum etc. I've seen awesome tanks with "2 watts per gallon". Lighting that's appropriate intensity and spectrum for the desired animals is better advise.

2. Filtration- reef tanks need good filtration- sump, skimmer

Plenty of folks, myself included, have run awesome reef tanks without a sump. Many are now going skimmerless... again depends on what you want to keep. I prefer skimmers, but have done without, and some corals fare better with more nutrient-rich water.

3. Live rock? 1.25 to 2 lbs per gal.

Again, not necessary. Dense rock (ie: Caribbean) you can easily put 2 lbs/gallon in any tank. However, more porous rock, (ie: Marshall) will rapidly fill a space. You'd never have room for anything else with 2 lbs/gallon, or even 1 lb/gallon. Use a proportionate amount to make an attractive aquascape, provide hiding spaces for fishes and inverts, and substrate for corals. I'd worry more about the look/functionality and less about the numbers.

4. Water that has at least been thru a reverse osmosis filter.

On this we agree. Start with the best quality filtered water possible. No matter what, if one starts with bad water, nothing else will matter.

5. All levels in your tank are checking out.

Agree... although opionions seem ot vary about what that means. pH 8.0-8.4 (8.3 is ideal), specific gravity 1.022-1.025, zero ammonia and nitrite, nitrate below 20 ppm (although zero or close to it is best in most cases) and zero phosphate. Alkalkinty 8-12 dKH or 4-6 mq/l.

Back to the original question though... the short answer is "depends". I wouldn't add sensitive corals like most SPS, corals that are non-photosynthetic, and sensitive LPS until the tank has matured more. Easy keep corals like mushrooms, button polyps, open brain, candy cane etc., are good hardy choices to begin with.

pnoy72, why don't you tell us a bit more about your setup, and perhaps we can recommend some good early choices?

Cheers,

Jenn

pnoy702 · 05-11-2004, 12:16 PM

Jenn & stigma,

Thanks a lot for all of your replies! They were very helpful. I would like to post my tank specs if I had a tank. I am still in the process of getting my equipment ready through lay-away at work, so it'll be a while before I get it started up (maybe in like a couple weeks or more). But here is what I am looking to do.

Tank 36" x 12" x 16" (30 gallons)
Lighting 36" 96 watt Coralife Aqualight w/ mounting legs (down the road, might change the stock bulb, and probably add in another regular flourescent-type bulbs: 50/50, Trichromatic, 10K, 20K, etc.)
Live Rock 30-50 lbs of it
Filtration DIY AC500 'Fuge (filled with some live sand & pieces of LR w/ Cheato as macro); AquaC Remora Protein Skimmer
Heating 2 x 50 watt Visi Therm Heaters (1 in the fuge, 1 in the tank)

Anything else I'm missing?

As for fish, my co-worker got me hooked on small gobies (clowns, neons), a jawfish, and maybe a firefish, and red scooter blennies, with the scooter blenny being added to the tank in the long run.

Troi

SaltBlock · 05-11-2004, 01:03 PM

Those are good fish choices for a 30 gallon tank. I would recommend limmiting yourself to two to four very small to small fish for your tank. You will run into fewer water quality problems down the road.

What types of corals are you planing to keep? From your breif description...it sounds like it could be a nice soft coral tank setup. Another light (actinic 03) would be a good thing though

AEB

pnoy702 · 05-11-2004, 03:34 PM

SaltBlock

Ones I'm looking at are just the simple kind. I'm interested in the "easy" polyps (buttons, green star, glove, clove), xenias, shrooms, kenya tree coral, and yellwo fiji leather coral.

JennM · 05-11-2004, 03:37 PM

Sounds to me like you've got a solid plan

Add 'em all slowly, one or two at a time as your water is ready and as it stays good, and you'll be on your way!

Cheers,
Jenn

pnoy702 · 05-11-2004, 03:45 PM

JennM,

Add them in once the water parameters have levelled off right? How long did it take for your tank to "finish cycling out" before you started added corals in?

SaltBlock · 05-11-2004, 06:35 PM

There is no time frame that anyone can give you that will be 100% correct, but the general "rule of thumb" is 2-3 months.

A problem w/ this is your water parameters will probably stabilize before 3 months, but it doesn't mean your tank is stable.

Read up on some of the old threads about tank cycles and adding first corals

Hope this helps,

AEB

pnoy702 · 05-11-2004, 08:22 PM

Cool. Thanks again SaltBlock! A lot of help for sure :-)

Troi

JennM · 05-12-2004, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pnoy702
JennM,

Add them in once the water parameters have levelled off right? How long did it take for your tank to "finish cycling out" before you started added corals in?

It varies from tank to tank. As well as being a hobbyist for many years, I also own a LFS... we set tanks up all the time.

If the rock is cured, params can level off in as little as a week (may not have a spike at all, but we wait anyway). Some take many weeks to have safe parameters.

Yes it takes months to mature, but it's very rare that a person waits months to add livestock, and I don't see any reason why not, IF parameters are suitable, IF it's done slowly, and if parameters are closely monitored.

I'm currently working with a restaurant who wanted their tank installed, pushed our install date back, didn't have water hooked up (so we couldn't fill the tank with our DI unit)... so they pushed us back a couple of weeks and now are annoyed that I won't dump a load of fish in there. I'm pushing the envelope as it is, but thusfar it's fine... I've learned to somewhat go by instinct.

Yes you need to wait until parameters are acceptable but I see no benefit in waiting unusual lengths of time - once you add an organism, the tank has to adjust, whether you wait a week, a month or a year.

Jenn