Are corals difficult?

[DamselnDistress]

I'm thinking about having corals but I want to know whether they're difficult to handle or not. Do you feed them? Are there certain things that should be in your water? Or once they're in do you not have to mess with them that much?

 

[Bang Guy]

Just like fish, there are difficult corals to keep and east corals to keep. Some need to be fed others can get food from the water column.

If you go slow & start with easy to keep corals and very gradually try more & more difficult corals you can learn along the way.

I always suggest starting with Mushrooms. They are pretty & fun to propogate. After a while write back for more suggestions.

Can you tell us more about your setup?

 

[kribbz]

the difficulty is in the eye of the beholder. do a little search through the sight and see what you think. or better yet get a few books and read them to find out just what goes into corals.

 

[steve-s]

It would really depend on the coral type. Most corals vary in care from species to species. Soft will require some type of feeding but will primarily get what they need from proper lighting. The same is true of LPS/SPS but they will also require proper chem level in the water as well, alk/Ca etc.

Tell us what you had in mind as well as your current set up to help determine your needs.

Cheers
Steve

 

[DamselnDistress]

75 gal with a fluval 404 canister filter, 1 powerhead (i know i could use another powerhead for coral or a wavemaker), No live rock yet...I'm planning on getting around 90 lbs of fiji from liveaquaria.com and i found a MH hood that'll give me about 330watts of light. I'm just lookin for simple corals, ones that look nice and don't take a lot of maintenance.

 

[fishfreek]

ones that look nice

Once again we are back to the eye of the beholder. Some people love softies because of how they look while others just go drop jaw over LPS and others do the same with SPS.

I would suggest if you have not done so maybe look thru our photo gallery ad the corals and decide what you feel appels to you visually. Once we have a basis of what types your looking to keep we can give you our best advice on lighting requirements, water requirements, etc.

Overall I would classify most softies and mushrooms as easy to keep. There are some sofies that I would classify as expert or even 'impossible' to keep alive corals but the bulk of them are very easy.

I do give one suggestion and that is to say away from any coral that shares the common name of "Flower pot".

 

[biotoxin]

lose the canister filter, just my 2 cent 8)

 

[two11devan]

Since you have the canister filter, I would still use it so you didn't waste your money....It can be used just to move some water around. I have a fluval 204 and i only use it to run carbon and to circulate water. I do have a powerhead as well as a skimmer also.

 

[ZekeMM]

Why should he lose the canister filter? Is it bad to have one if you keep corals?

 

[fishfreek]

Canister filters will basicly collect and cause your nitrates to remain somewhat high. Corals and nitrates do not mix.

 

[DamselnDistress]

well would a protein skimmer and live rock take care of the nitrate problem? What kind of filter should I have?

 

[fishfreek]

the skimmer wont directly affect the nitrate levels but in theory it will help remove the organics that could eventurally break down to contribute to the nitrate problem.

Live rocks and a DSB are effective methods of nitrate removal.

 

[NaH2O]

Once you decide which corals you like, and would like to have in your tank, post a question as to the needs or do some research. Even if you think they may be to difficult for you now, they may be easy as you get accustomed to keeping corals. Also, if you only like "softies", then you would't need to spend the extra money on MH lighting. I would research as much as you can by looking at pictures, looking at online vendors pictures of corals, and decide which ones you want to have. Go from there. Aquarium Corals is a great book to have if you are interested in corals. Hope this helps!

 

[DamselnDistress]

Ok here's the corals I'm thinking about....pumping xenia, a toadstool mushroom leather, a brain coral, the button corals look cool, and so do the bubble corals, i saw an orange tube coral i liked. How many corals can I have in a 75 gal? I liked a lot of soft corals too.

 

[NaH2O]

Looks like you are most interested in "softies" and LPS. You need to use at least VHOs, and I've included a couple of articles. The first is a good all around lighting article describing the various terminology and lamps. The second is a more advanced article on metal halide lighting for those that are intersted.

>>>Lighting the Reef Tank, a Primer for Beginners<<<

>>>Analysis of MH lamps and ballasts<<<

 

[fishfreek]

Powercompact bulbs would also be OK for the corals you list. For a 75 gal tank I would venture to say 4 96W PC bulbs will be great or 4 110W VHO bulbs. Reguarless of the type of florecent have 1/2 of them 10K and 1/2 of them actinic.

 

[kribbz]

man i agree that while the lighting setup they are mentioning above would be good to keep what you have mentioned. i too was like you when i started out. i only wanted a FO tank, then i just wanted a few corals in my tank. so i bought pc's and a couple NO actinics. then i really got bit by the bug and wanted more and more. so i had to upgrade to MH and the pc's were just laying around. i would say go with the MH because: first its more intense light which your corals will appriciate and secondly you don't have to upgrade if you decide you want to keep SPS later on.