Red Sea Max 130d / Newbie coral advice...

Hi all, I currently have a 55g FOWLR set up and due to having to move the location of my tank to a smaller area and also my desire to start getting some corals I'm switching over to a Red Sea Max 130D. I've searched through the forums but ended up more confused about corals. Can anyone provide a link or advice that could help me out and recommend some good beginner corals? How long do I leave the lights on for each day? I've been doing well so far with my FOWLR tank, but I want to be sure I do this right.

 

Most have the blue lights on for 10 to 12 hours and the white lights for 8 to 10 hours.

For corals zoas and palys, mushrooms, leather corals, polyps most of anything referred to as softies.

 

welcome to 3 reef dirtyroastbeef
+1 on lighting duration with above

easy beginners corals

Green Star Polyps
Anthelia
Clove polyps
Yellow polyps
Zoanthids
Palythoas
Leather finger corals
Toadstool leathers
Mushroom colonies (including ricordia species)
Nepthea erecta - or golden tree coral
Kenya tree corals

the above corals dont need anything other than stable water parameters, light and adequate flow (which varies between the species - Leathers enjoy more water movement than mushrooms do and thus these specific needs should be taken into account when placing in the tank)

also LPS corals under the stock Red Sea lighting - Torch, Hammer, Bubble and Frogspawn are known to do well

some of the above are so easy that with relatively little effort on your part they can become invasive ( taking over adjascent rocks etc - GSP, Anthellia and shrooms to name but 3)

but for cutting your teeth , and learning the basic care principles, the above list represent, what I would suggest newcomers start with, and if they prosper, then move on to the LPS mentioned below the 1st group.

Steve

 

Thanks for the great information, I really appreciate it. I have a question though (probably a silly one) about the lighting. Do I have the white lights on during the day, then the blue at night? Or both at the same time and nothing on at night?

 

blue on first for one hour then all lights and just blue for last hour

 

+1 on 1400ex

running the blues for the 1st hour and then adding (leave on the whites) for the next 10 hours , then switching whites off , leaving blue on for a final hour

this gives a nice dawn / dusk feel to the tank and some of the corals mentioned are going to look great under just that blue light for the last hour


Steve

 

The 130D arrived and I should be able to set it up tomorrow. My question now is, whats the best way to transfer over the fish, rocks and sand to my new tank? Should I mix new water in the new tank or use the old water from my setup I have now? Any advice?

 

dirtyroastbeef
the 130D is 35 gallons I believe
and you currently have 55 gallons

how long has the 55 been set up?

if it where mine, and the new tank was going into a different location to the existing one
I would
carefully so as not to cloud the water, syphon out water from the 55 and move it to the new tank
I would move the rocks across as the water level reduced
I would continue to do this until I had got enough water in the new tank
depending on how long I had the sand bed in the old tank I would either rinse this in whats left of the 55 water and add it to the new tank or if it had been there a few months probably throw it away and add new sand with a cup of old sand to the new tank

I would have removed all rock and most of the water before capturing the fish and temporarily housed them in a bucket until new tank was set up

what filtration does 55 have presently?
we need to know where the bulk of your biological filtration is located - either in a cannister on bio media or on the rockwork in your tank ?

Steve

 

The 55 has been set up for roughly 6-8 months. The majority of my bioload would be on my LR. I also have a protein skimmer and then a HOB filter that uses the carbon filters, but its a little undersized for the 55 and i used it mainly for water polishing.

 

excellent

what is your current base is it sand or crushed coral and how deep is it?
if its 6 months old, I would probably bin it and not take the risk but that maybe just me]]

Steve