Keeping corals??? New to the salt world.

C

cervezamoney

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I have a 29 gallon with a fluval 304 and poor lighting, what is the min. lighting I should have to keep corals? Is my filtration enough? Thanks for your help!

I had some livestock given to me this week, and this is my first time dealing with salt, so any pointers are welcome.
 
What type of livestock did you get?

I would suggest going with T5s for lighting. But I would also suggest you get some live rock.
 
Welcome to the addiction!!!

I also have a 29 gallon! I'm currently running 130 watt power compact lighting. I hope to upgrade my lighting at some point, but I've had it up for a year and have had no issues.

Currently in my tank I have, pulsing xenia, several zoa colonies, kenya tree frag, candy cane, yellow polyps, ricordia mushrooms, green star polyps and one HUGE rbta! they all seem to be doing well.

The biggest tip I would suggest is that once your tank has cycled make sure you keep up with your water changes. Keeping your water parameters normal will be the best thing you can do to maintain a healthy system.

Good luck!
 
I got a Clarki clown, two yellow tails, a crab and some snails, the guy gave me his water from the tank and his live sand, so I think I'm well established. I only have 2 20w t8's at the moment, and I know thats not near enough
 
rock that is either cultured for a couple years or harvested from the ocean. It includes all sorts of life forms (bacteria, algeas, inverts, worms, and many others) that filter, eat and break down wastes, excess foods and polutants into safer forms.

Basically live rock is the primary filtering media for salt water aquariums. Without it, you should expect to see a rise in amonia - the basic waste product from the fish.

The live sand and your filter may have some bacteria to help break down the amonia into nitrite but both are toxic and will eventually build up and polute the tank to the point wher it may kill the fish. Generally speaking, filters and sand alone do not do an adequate job of providing enough or the right types of bacteria to keep up with the waste products from the fish and other upper life forms. Where live rock, provides enough density and surface area to harbor these needed lower life forms to detoxify the water. There is a ballance that will need to be established and maintained, achieveing this ballance is called cylcling a tank.

I suggest you do some additional reading on starting up a salt tank - here is a good place to start:

http://www.melevsreef.com/tanks.html

and
http://www.reefcentral.com/modules.php?s=7fe125499b57e1b1779691378d77fc98&name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=1
 
Heres my readings:

specific gravity 1.027 *** the lps said That closer to 1.020 was best?
salinity 36
ph 8.0
ammonia 1.0
nitrate 1.0
nitrite 0.0

I mis-stated before My fish/sand are in a 20 gallon, I have a 29 ready, if I transfer everything. Water and all to the 29, then topped off with distilled water(approx 9 gallons or 1/3 of 29 gallons) to bring my salinity level down and have a bigger tank. would I be OK?

I read the info to the links that were posted, Thanks, good info. 8)
 
heres what I would do, in order - this does not have to be all at once so you can spread the cost out over some period of time

get about 30lbs of live rock, hopfully from an established system so you don't have to cure it

then get a resonable skimmer - like a remora

make sure you have your amonia, nitrite and nitrate all near zero for at least a few weeks

then upgrade lights and keep your phosphate in check or you will get a bunch of green hair algea and/or cynobacteria

then get some softies (corals)
 
to answer the original lighting question:
you should have about 3-5 watts/ gallon of good quality lighting... %50 blue actinic and %50 10K daylight or near for most corals....if you are doing high lite or SPS corals you need more wattage. but for a common assortment of corals this will be fine!!
- so something like a dual 65 watt PC fixture or compatable wattage T5 ect..
 
@Neptune1 wrote:
to answer the original lighting question: you should have about 3-5 watts/ gallon of good quality lighting... %50 blue actinic and %50 10K daylight or near for most corals....if you are doing high lite or SPS corals you need more wattage. but for a common assortment of corals this will be fine!! - so something like a dual 65 watt PC fixture or compatable wattage T5 ect.. said:
Hmmmmm......So this would only be 65W of usable light for corals...actinic's don't count, they are more for "us", the coral don't use a lot of what comes out of actinic bulb's imo. We won't get into the cheaper bulbs that are out there that "may" last 5 - 6 months and that's if they are on spectrum to begin with.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
 
Matt: All the above is good advice. However, first things first. You HAVE to get that ammonia down right away, or you're going to lose your fish. One whole point of ammonia is a lot. I'm hoping you meant 0.1 and not 1.0 ammonia. You need to do some big water changes or get some Amquel Plus to bind up that ammonia.

Once you get that under control you should start collecting Live Rock. I wouldn't even worry about lighting right now. Just get your water prams where they should be and let that tank cycle out. If you started with live sand from an established system you are probably seeing a mini cycle right now. I'd take the Clarki back to your friend until your tank is stable. If the clown gets stressed out you will be starting your new tank out with an Ich infestation. The Damsels will probably be okay. However, I'd take them back also if you can catch them.

Read up on live rock. It’s much more than just something to attach your corals to.

Read
Take it slow.
You'll do well.
 
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