ran into some cheap "frags" reason to go salt?

[951socal]

this guy I ran into locally is selling fragments of his various coral for $1-5

I have a spare 10 gallon tank, an aquaclear 20 pump that I can throw some chaeto into and 10lbs of "live sand from the ocean" that I bought accidentally thinking it was freshwater stuff that I didn't bother to take back and left in the packaging (was only $4 on sale).


im thinking about just buying a live rock for $50 at petco and throwing the fragments onto them with the bonding paste.

the problem is employees at petco won't give me advice on anything other than telling me not to go salt and "buy a bigger tank" even though I've spent thousands of dollars there on freshwater fish and tanks for my girlfriend in the span of a month.

getting into firearms was a hell of a lot easier everyone was into lending a helping hand!

 

[Sniperhank]

Saltwater isn't anymore difficult than freshwater, it is just different in its own way. The thing about coral frags is that they need varying degrees of lighting for them to survive and that feeding them will only end up causing issues in your tank later on and still not fulfilling the needs of the coral. Just buying a live rock won't cut it.

They are correct whent hey say go bigger, as the larger the tank the easier time you will have with saltwater. It'll take longer for your nitrates to build up on you, as an example.

I would suggest reading some of the saltwater articles here on the site to help you start out. Saltwater - Aquarium Advice

 

[951socal]

ah got it. but im thinking about just getting 3 polyps of blue tube zoe. says it doesn't need that much light and can I just attach it to a thing of live rock with the bonding agent sold at petco

also maybe I can use a even smaller tank?

 

[mr_X]

No. It's not a reason to go salt. 1 and 5 dollar frags can be found all over the place. The odds are these frags are worth just that.
I have given corals away for free. In my opinion, the receivers of these corals didn't get a good deal either, because they weren't worth much if anything.

Besides, your scenario of tossing a rock and some sand in a tank and putting the frags in, would most likely kill them.

 

[Riverhawk]

Cheap frags are exactly that..cheap for a reason.. Just cause theyre cheap is no reason to set up a tank..you would still have to cycle that tank as you would any other before you stock it ....if not cycled you would just be throwing away money...folks who want to;really want to,do it correctly and keep it foremost in their minds that granted corals cant move or be cute that they are still living animals and we are their caretakers.... Thats my opinion and im sticking to it ...

 

[951socal]

how about just a super pico reef I see people shoving $400-500 worth of reef into half gallon tanks

can I stick two polyps ($12 worth) of blue tube zoa's onto a fragment of live rock from the sellers tank and house it in a cheap betta cube with live sand and some of the sellers salt water and get it to live?

 

[Sniperhank]

All live means is that there is beneficial bacteria growing in the sand or rock, it doesn't live in the water. This still doesn't address the lighting requirements that the coral you want to keep require to live.

 

[951socal]

I found this while searching for care tips. for the specific one I want to buy.

Since in the wild Deepwater Zoanthidea do not receive bright lighting, tin the reef aquarium they prefer low to medium lighting to open well

^ I took that as just needing an LED

I also found an article about feeding them vs not feeding them it seems people prefer not feeding them in pico and nano sized reefs while feeding them the frozen "juice" or tiny particulate bits in larger tanks

 

[mr_X]

You should do more research. You are going to fail over and over for a while until you pick up reef keeping. Why not just learn it first?

 

[Riverhawk]

For most of us,reef keeping is a labor of love..it takes potentially a lot of money,labor and at times is VERY frustrating..it is a constant learning curve..you never stop learning..many of us started out fw..and kept fw for many years before going sw.i personally kept fw for 15 yrs before even thinking salt..and then did over a year of research before making that big step..this habit(yep,i said habit because it can be ) this is not a discipline to be taken lightly,or without lengthy research..get your books,read everything you can,then we'll talk..imo...

 

[Bectan01]

Agree with all of the above. The answer to your question, can you just get some sand and water and put a $5 frag of zoos and get it to live, is no. The amount of money and constant monitoring it would take to get that to work will far exceed the coral itself! I love that you've fallen for zoas tho, that's awesome. People build whole tanks around zoa gardens. Go big or go home is what I say!