Waiting period

[pat8you]

I was wondering how long (after the tank has fully cycled) you should wait to add some easy to care for coral or an anemone?

Also, my tank is going to be a 12 gallon bio cube. what anemone would you suggest putting in there if i was to get a pair of clowns to go with it? It will have 4watts per gallon. will the anemone fight with any corals i put in there?

[amkelly]

as long as your tank has cycled and youve tested for everything you can begin adding whenever you want. ADD SLOWLY!! be patient because you do not want to throw off the bacteria level between aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. i would suggest an LTA for your two clowns. stay away from a carpet they will eat other fish. the anemone does have the potential to sting corals but if it is small it should be fine.

[melosu58]

An anenome needs a more mature tank. I always suggest waiting till your tank is more stable. Waiting till you tank is 8-9 months will be best. As far as the corals do a couple weekly PWC`s to get the nitrates down that happen at the end of a cycle and start off with some easy corals like mushrooms and button polyps.

[cmor1701d]

Depending on what type of anemone you get your lighting may or not be adequate. Be sure to spend the next few months researching different type. Most also tend to wander around the tank till they find a place to settle. That could cause it to sting other corals that already in place. They also can grow quite large.

Anemones have a pretty bad survival rate in home aquariums. A year or two is probably average. Some have managed to keep them a long time, but in larger very mature tanks.

[pat8you]

Yeah i have heard that anemones can be rather difficult to keep. I think i my just bypass the anemone for now.

On liveaquaria.com and some other sites they say that different kinds of corals and creaturs need either low moderate or high light intensity. can anyone give me a ball park estimate of what kind of wattages go with those. i.e. moderate is 3-5 watts?

[melosu58]

3-4 wpg is moderate. That`s all I had for 7 yrs and I had alot of soft corals and LPS corals. I have since doubled my lighting. BTW with lighting getting more high tech everyday the wpg rule is getting outdated. We can still use it as a broad guideline but par and intensity are becoming more important than WPG. But as a broad statement 3-4 wpg will be OK.

[lando]

As Mike mentioned, the lighting you have is plenty for most softies and LPS corals. I have a 12gal nano cube with the same amount of light and my corals seem to thrive in it. This pic is a bit old but will give you an idea of what you can keep...

[pat8you]

Thanks. Do you just have the two fish in there or are there more?