John Snow of Corals - I know nothing

M

Malefactor

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So, i know nothing about corals. Well, that's a slight lie. I know a few things. I know you have to feed them... For the LPS, i've got that down pretty well. Baby medicine doser with some thawed frozen mysis shrimp and we're good to go. I know that SPS like high light and LPS like medium light. Most softies like low light / flow. Otherwise... No idea. So, i just got a good batch of corals and would like some tips on how i can care for them to see them thrive as opposed to die

Fire and Ice Zoa
Bi Colored Candy Cane
Bi Colored Hammer
Blue Sympodium? (Spelling here?)
Bi Colored Torch Coral
Metallic Red Mushroom
Yellow Bubble Coral
Purple Lobophyllia Brain Coral
Red War Favia Brain Coral

I know some of these are probably not the best for beginners, but a lot of them i actually got for free... Sooo, Hoping i can get them to work pretty well. Main things i'm wondering is...

How often do i need to dose trace elements. How often do i need to Micro Feed the tank (or do i just spot feed the SPS like the LPS with a syringe and phyto?). How often should i dose Calcium or would i need to with these frags and a 170G setup? (135G tank + 55G sump (sump not all the way full).

Placement in my tank?

Lights for now are 6 CW Cree XM-L2 with 60 degree lense spaced about 5-6 inches apart. Finnex Fuge+ I use for the actinics (don't even bother turning on the other portion that's got some red and 6500K lights) and a Finnex Ray2 (10000K LED). I have them in that order on the tank. The Cree on one side, Actinics in the middle and the 10000K LED on the far side.

I planning to update the lights before long. Gonna do them with 8 XM-L2 CW, 8 Royal Blue 400-420nm, 8 Royal Blue 420-450nm, 4 True Violet (Not UV), 2 Red and 2 Cyan. Connecting them to an Arduino with a storm / sunrise to sunset controller and setting the cool white with the royals to a true moonlight through the dimming. Using LDD's and seeing if i can rewire a computer rail power supply to power them. Still debating on putting them with 60 or 80 degree lenses.

Recently had a REALLY bad algae problem. It's in the process of clearing up now. Didn't have a proper RO/DI and also didn't know how to properly use my skimmer. Now that those two things are settled. Everything is looking a whole lot better. RBTA has darkened literally over night after last big water change with pure water / salt mix. Also upped my Salinity from 1.025 to 1.027. Everything seems to have perked up a lot. Here's how it looks and current set up... I don't have the Red War Favia or the Bubble yet. Those i will be getting soon. As well, getting another 150 pounds of sand to start a DSB and my Refugium.

How my live rock is set up
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One of the candy canes, Sympodium? Fire and Ice Zoa
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Another of the Candy Cane (actually, one of the branches broke off the frag rock while i was trying place it, so i moved it there), Hammer and Lobophylia and the mushrooms (2 of them) on the rock with the speckled algae (No idea what that thing is, it just sprouted up on that rock. I do love it though)
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The Torch Coral
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Welcome to the wonderful, and expensive, world of coral! They are not that hard, just require stable water parameters, proper lighting, and adequate flow. I will detail these below with what I prefer for my corals.

Parameters: First of all, I would bring your salinity back down to 1.025 or 1.026 at the very highest. Do you have an auto top off? If not, definitely 1.025 so that it will give you some wiggle room for evaporation, if you are manually topping your tank off with fresh water (rodi). I personally feel like Alkalinity is the most important parameter to keep stable (besides salinity). I shoot to keep my alkalinity right around 9. Some people prefer to keep it lower or higher than 9, but that is what I feel works best for me. Never let it fall below 7! With the corals that you have, calcium is not as important (until you move onto sps). Your corals should get plenty of calcium through your regular water changes. Since you are battling back an algae problem, you are battling your phosphate levels (a result of using tap water to start off). This is very important in getting your algae under control, plus your corals don't really like phosphates either. One thing you can use to assist in this process, besides using rodi water from now on and proper skimming, is a product called Phosphate Rx. It is very easy to use and you can buy it online and I believe that Marc (Melev's Reef) sales it. You simply add the recommended dose and it bundles up the phosphates in your tank and then your skimmer will pull them out. Your bubble tip looks pretty happy, so your parameters must be pretty decent!

Lighting: I am not an LED expert, so I am not familiar with your set up. One thing with LED's is you want to acclimate your corals properly. It is easy to burn the corals up if your LED's are too bright, or if they are not properly acclimated. All the corals that you have, prefer lower to medium light. I would start them all off at the bottom of your tank and then slowly move them up once they start looking happy. Once you upgrade to your new led fixture (which I would do as soon as you can. You don't want to spend all this time acclimating them to one set of lights, only to start over again with another set of lights), be sure and don't start the fixture off running at 100%.

Flow: What type of flow do you have? What size of Powerhead? You want your torch, hammer, and anemone to look like they are gently blowing in the wind. Proper flow is just as important as lighting.

Cheers!
 
+1000!!! on stability. The money you will loose on corals will heavily outway the cost of the proper equipment. Get dosing pumps, Auto top off equipment, and good 'New' reliable test kits. I found life gets in the way of manually dosing, toping off water and testing. So if you can make it Auto, you will be much happier than always "fixing" your paramaters. another thing you will find out is, if you get the dosing Dialed in and ATO keeping Salinity stable, you will find yourself testing less often.....
 
@Malefactor wrote:
I know you have to feed them... said:
Well, some corals need to be fed but most can do just fine using photosynthesis only. I very rarely try to feed corals directly and instead once or twice a week I feed something like Rod's Food (the "Original" version) that has a variety in it that includes stuff that's small enough that the corals get some, too. The rest of the time I just use flakes or pellets, trying to keep some variety going.

@Malefactor wrote:
How often do i need to dose trace elements. said:
I'd go with the general rule of "If you can't test for it, don't dose it." Calcium, Magnesium, and Alkalinity are the things to be concerned with. You can test for those over a certain time period (a week?) and see how much they drop. Then you can figure out what and how much you need to add each day.

I also agree with the previous comments. Lower the salinity to about 1.025, and if you don't have an ATO I'd highly recommend it. I don't know why I didn't get one sooner than I did and wouldn't ever want to be without one now.
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Ive got calcium and pH tests, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I try to keep it all stable, and it hasn't fluctuated at all on those levels. That rbta has about doubled in size over the past month. I quit trying to feed him anything but left over mysis. Anything else just gets spit out. Tried fresh octopus, mussels, clams, shrimp and substances. Nothing... ive been feeding the favia about every three days.

Will get the salinity down. I dont have an ATO, but i do fill it daily manually.

And finally, will lower them. Thought zoa, sympodium, hammers and candy cane all liked much higher light. So, i put them up top. Will bring them down so they dont get blasted by light. For circulation i have a jebao wp40 (or is it no? I forget. Ones a tune number other jebao... either case, got the jebao) and a hydor koralia evolution 1800. Mag7 return pump with 3.5ft head to entry
 
@Malefactor wrote:
Ive got calcium and pH tests said:
How long has your tank been cycled? Sounds like it has been a while, since you bta is doing well and growing. You can stop testing ammonia and nitrites...unless you sense something going wrong in your tank. No need in testing for calcium more than once every 2 weeks or so (as long as you are doing regular water changes). And I honestly haven't tested my ph in over 2 years. Definitely get yourself an Alk test. I have always used the cheap API test....like $6 on Amazon or at the pet stores. Start testing that frequently until you get your Alk dialed in.

I honestly would not spend too much time feeding your anemone. Once a week is good. If you over feed them, they will start spitting it out. I have a huge SRBTA that I rarely feed. He does get some food from the water column when I feed my fish and what the clowns bring him, but they get the majority of what they need from your light.

Also, since you have a sump, do you have chaeto in it? There are a lot of benefits to having chaeto and running an opposite lighting cycle in your sump (nutrient export, balanced ph levels, etc.).
You can probably get by with the pumps that you have for a while, but will eventually want to upgrade.
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I started with live rock cured in tubs for a month. So, i made sure they were cycled before adding to the tank.

The tank itself has only been up for 2... Maybe 3 months tops? So, still a new tank pretty much...

I have only been feeding the anemone once a week for the first 2 weeks. Since it spit everything out. I've been doing it about once every 2 weeks.

For now, i have Chaeto in the display (it's not going well...) with Caulerpa. I have the sump / refugium, but need to finish drilling my tank (need a bigger drill bit for the last 2 holes). So, hopefully within the week i'll be breaking the tank down and drilling those last two holes for my overflow system and setting it all back up so that i can run the refugium and not just the sump. Then i'll be putting the chaeto in there with an opposite light run schedule.
 
The Nem doesn't need direct feeding I have two Sherman Rose Anemones. One is huge and I have never spot fed them.

Get an Alkalinity Test kit and a Magnesium test kit. If you can keep ALk, Cal, and Mag stable, you will be a happy reefer.
 
yeah, i keep checking for the cheaper testing kits locally (just don't have $80 for a red sea or higher grade kit when there's things like ATO and better lights i need as well), but they're always sold out. Might have to get on amazon, just sucks to have to pay shipping for something that's $5-10.
 
I like Nyos test kits. Buy something you would buy anyway on Amazon so you go above $35 to qualify for free shipping
 
I'm seriously considering just getting Hanna. Looks like most of the test kits are around $15-20 online and the Hanna are only about $30-40 and SOOOO much simpler and less room for error. So, i have Calcium (just the API... Not the best, but decent). I still need phosphate, magnesium and alkalinity. Although, most of what i've read is if you have Calcium / magnesium at proper levels, alkalinity doesn't really matter as it should even out on it's own. As well, that alkalinity doesn't matter as much as long as everything else is where it should be.

I plan on working on an Auto Top off and such, but it'll be a little while. Month or two before i'm able. First things first i have to fix my livingroom. In the process of rewiring the house and at this current moment we're getting shorts with the equipment i already have plugged in. I'm not too keen on adding ANYTHING else, even if it's just a 10v pump for an ATO until we get that sorted out. Got most of the supplies, but finding the time to actually do the work is where we run into a problem. Once that's done i'm a go for upgrading temp probe, ATO and lighting. Gonna put it all together in a DIY programmed Arduino.

For dosing, Once i get to a stage that i need it, from my freshwater set ups when i was running heavy planted tanks i have a CO2 setup and will be going with a automated calcium reactor. Not sure if there's a such thing for magnesium, will have to check. But at least i'm all set for that.
 
Well, i must be doing SOMETHING right... The hammer is grown almost a full 1/3 of what it originally was, several new eyes on the favia, torch is about twice the length that is was (no new growth other than getting longer tentacles though), candycanes have several new heads appearing, and the one that i thought was dead has started recovering on half of it. Other half is definitely dead. No change at all. But all of this in only about 2 weeks!!! The Blue Sympodium has even started opening up after being tossed all over the place and the fire and ice zoa polyps have doubled in size and started growing a few new polyps. I think the biggest difference was switching from basic Instant Ocean to Reef Salts... It's made a HUGE difference... That and the better RO/DI are the only 2 real changes i've made... But between them... It's made a world of difference... Most of the algae has fully disappeared. Even the Caulerpa and Chaeto i put in there has mostly died off. Still growing a strong mat of algae on the very bottom in the egg crate my rock and some frags are on, but that's only place it's growing really. Still some on the back glass, but even that's died mostly off and almost none at all on the rocks. Instead... The rocks are RAPIDLY being replaced with coralline. The ONLY coral i have that hasn't really changed at all is the Lobophylia... No clue what things deal is. It doesn't appear dead, it's not bleached, but it's not growing either... I've tried moving it to higher light (started to bleach, so i moved it back down). Put in less flow, put in more flow. Put in almost no light... Doesn't seem to matter what i do, it doesn't change.

Candy Cane i thought was dead... Left side perking back up
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Blue Sympodium
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Lobophylia that doesn't seem to like anywhere i put it.
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Fire and Ice
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Candy Canes growing like mad and started to get a pale green color instead of the white they were
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Torch growth
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Hammer Head
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This went from
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To this
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