How many coral frags can I add to my tank.

[weslogston]

I have a 55gal saltwater aqarium that is 3 months old. I have had my black volitan lionfish, 6 large margarita snails, and a yellowtail blue damsel in the tank for over a month. and on thursday i will have a burrfish puffer. There is over 10lbs of crushed live rock for 1st layer then 20 lbs live sand over that and 50lbs of dead live rock formations- half on each end of the tank- creating caves. As far as the parameters go they are and have been perfect, ammonia 0, ph 8.1 ish, sal 1.023, nitrates 0, nitrites 0, temp 80. The lighting is 48in T5 HO with led strip. 4 bulbs w/individual reflectors. one aqeuon 55 power filter, one jebo 178 skimmer/filter(i know i dont really need it) and one 12in air wand. I have been raising and breeding freshwater fish for years, i have several large very nice tanks- so i know fish really well. but I need some advice on my saltwater setup. I could get the advice from wayne at the pet store where i buy everything but im starting to make outside purchases due to his mark-ups. so i cant ask him or he will get mad at me for buying elsewhere. what i want to do with my saltwater tank is eventually have alot of colorful corals and such. I want to grow them myself. In the near future i will be upgrading to a much larger tank- so dont worry about that. now, for the question- How many or much coral frags can I add to my tank without affecting parameters or starving them? Where in the tank can I place them (i want to place them about my stacks of dead live rock to make things more colorful)? I do not have a power head but there is alot of current due to the two large pumps. Do i need to feed them anything? Is there any animals that i shouldnt put in with them? Is there any cool looking colorful easy coral frags that you would recomend? Thank you for your time. Wes Logston

[melosu58]

Corals add very little to the bioload. As far as those two fish I really dont think they mess with corals even though I`m not 100% sure. What I am 100% sure is that they will kill and eat any inverts in the tank like crabs, shrimp and snails.

[weslogston]

I know my puffers will eat the snails, crabs i dont care about that, they are food, its good for them to eat snails and crabs anyway, im just asking what type of coral frags would be best to start growing in my tank. I got my new filtration system today Hagen Fluval 305, so the aqeuon 55 is gone now. I have proper filtration, skimmer, lighting, and sand and rock ratios. Everything in this tank is out of a 200gal tank that is owned by the local fish store. It is a very nice and clean and healthy 55 from the lights down to the stand. Keep in mind that i'm upgrading to a larger tank in the near future. I never made a single move without first investigating, i never rushed anything, i take excellent care of my tanks. it is the proper time to start growing corals in that tank, i just dont know which would be easiest and how much is the proper amount. i want as much as i can safely have in it. thank you

[Don7]

3 months is fairly new. If you want to add corals i would say mushrooms and zoanthids. Try those and see how it goes.

[Zer0]

Actually, you really DO need a protein skimmer for any tanks over 40Gallons. So for a 55, i would definitely recommend one. That's a lot of water, and just having a simple HOB or canister filter running on the tank won't do much for filtration. Having as much live rock as you do now, will count for a good amount of biological filtration, but you still need something to count for mechanical filtration in a tank that size. Also, Jebo skimmers don't have a very good track record from what i've heard, so upgrading your skimmer solution might be something to look in to. There are way more brands that are fairly cheap, and are a heck of a lot better than Jebo skimmers. Jebo skimmers are like SeaClones.. which are terrible skimmers and don't have a good track record either.

As for the lighting, since you say it's a 48" fixture, with 4 bulbs, my guess is that you have 216w's total.. which isn't all that bad. I'm no light expert, but judging by your fixture, and if those reflectors are well-made, then i would say you could support softies and some LPS.. but any of the low-light SPS you wanted to support would need to be placed near the top of the tank. The most common 55G tanks are 21 inches tall, and that's a lot of water for light to penetrate through, unless you have a differently sized 55G tank. Giving us the tank dimensions would help us to let you know what coral you could support with the fixture at hand. If you bought a fixture such as the 48" Nova Extreme Pro, which is a 6-bulb fixture, you would be able to support any coral you wanted. However, since you say you are upgrading to a larger tank in the future, maybe you will want to go with a Metal Halide solution that you would be able to bring over to the larger tank when you get it. Buying a lighting solution that can support multiple tank dimensions now, would save you money in the future because you wouldn't have to scrap or sell the old fixture to buy a new one. I'm buying a MH pendant now for my 25G and if i ever plan on upgrading to a larger tank, i will still be able to use it since it's an excellent light, and metal halides are among the strongest lighting solutions and can penetrate deeper through water than most other lights can. Just my thoughts on the lighting matter.

I also agree that good coral to start off with are mushrooms and zoas. Those a pretty good test corals.

HTH.