Ok I give up

[MYTY1705]

I now have my lights for my 55 gallon tank. it will give me 4 watts per gallon of compact fluorescent lighting.

Current setup is in my bio except a few minor changes

30 lbs of lr
2 perc clowns
1 coral beauty
10 blue germits
1 sand sifting star
3 turbo grazers

now the problem. I have the coral itch. I know I said i would not want one for a long time, BUT!!!! you know how that goes.

Now the question is what corals are good for beginners with this type of setup. I would like to have an anemone for the percs, and bright colored corals. My tank is pretty drab rigth now so color is of the essence. Please help with some ideas of coral varieties that are colorful and not to hard to take care of. TIA.

 

[seaham358]

IMO anemones are for mature tanks only that have been stable and running for 7 months +. Clowns do not require an anemone and it is not a guarantee that they will host with one.
Easy corals, shroons, zoos, Kenya tree, Colts, leathers. You need to keep your alkalinity and calcium up for certian corals also.
Do you test for these? how old is the tank.

 

[MYTY1705]

My tank has been set up for about 1 year now.
I realize clown can but I love watching them snuggle with a friend.
I have been dosing for calcium to help with coraline.
I check this every week for the past 3 months.

0 amm.
0 nitrate
5-10 nitrite
8.3 ph
400 calcium

have also been dosing moly/stront. and iodine to help with hermits molting.

 

[Phyl]

Sun coral (must be hand fed), open brain (feed this too), shrooms & ricordias, Xenia, frogspawn/hammer, star polyps ... How tall is your tank? I think you could keep quite a bit with 4wpg, especially if you've got a 24" or less tank height.

I've just updated my gallery with pictures. Most of the high light corals that I have are up high. The frags have all been there since January and are all thriving. I'm currently running with roughly 2wpg.

You probably can't do SPS with blues and purples without MH but yellow, orange and green SPS you should be able to carry.

 

[MYTY1705]

tank height is 24". only bad thing is with as little rock as I have Everything will have to be either on the sand or about 6-8 inches in the tank. Alteast until I convince my wife to let me order from LR.com

 

[Phyl]

Sounds like LR should be your first purchase then! After that find your local reef club and buy some frags from locals. I'm really happy that I went that way to populate my reef.

 

[MYTY1705]

Well unfortunately it will be about 3-4 months befor I can buy the rock. As for frags the only way to get them here in the middle of no where is to buy from LFS. 3-4 dollars for very small peices. Some he 1-2 xenia, 1 maybe 2 mushrooms, or 2-3 polys of some corals. Is this typical for frag pieces?
Would the limits of rocks hurt, or just a suggestion for more rock first?

 

[Phyl]

That's just how I get my high light corals up higher. Steer clear of the SPS for now and you should be fine. Anything with a moderate light requirement should be fine based on my experience (YMMV). I currently have 4x65 pc lighting over a 4'x24x24 tank. The front and back of my tank (the light strip is about 11" wide) are dimmer so my best lighting is right over my rock peak.

As far as the prices of frags, the frags from my 2-05 tank shot are about the size they came at (they'd been in my tank for about a month at that point). Most of those frags averaged roughly to 10$/pc. 5$ a piece would be a good price for them. My one large shroom split and is now 3 (I think it wants to be 4) and my other one is getting ready to split and I've only had them since February.

 

[malkore]

0 nitrate
5-10 nitrite

I hope you have these two switched around. 5-10ppm of nitrite is toxic. 5-10ppm nitrate is safe.

 

[MYTY1705]

Yeah sorry bout that. Little oops on my part, but yeah the way you said it. Been trying to get those down to 0 as well but have yet to get it that way. Giong to be adding some macro algea and some mangroves to a fuge I'm putting together in the next couple weeks.

 

[Phyl]

Mangroves... cool. Haha on the oops. I transposed it in my brain too.