Soft Corals

Hi...Just want to get things together that I need in order to start keeping soft corals.

Right now I have a fish only 135 gallon tank. I have dual 250w MH and 4-65w PC lighting. I am doing my plumbing over very soon so I will have a 55 gallon sump with an Aqua C EV-240 skimmer, an Iwaki 100 main pump. I have 2 Koralia 4's in there now with about 100 lbs of rock.

I just want to know what additives I am going to need, if I am going to need a calcium reactor, ...etc. Or any other hardware to make them happy. AND...if i do grab some hard corals...is there much difference in what I would need?

Thanks!

 

ccscscpc

you will probably get several different answers as many people do things in different ways

softies - if you stick with softies , then IME you need light, water flow and water changes - its always good to have Carbon (chemical warfare and tank clarity) plus GFO ( insurance against algae plagues)
liquid food supplements / coral foods are probably the only thing I would add in a softie tank
its good practice to test for calcium, magnesium and Alkalinity but in a moderately stocked tank with regular water changes your probably going to be spared the need for any of these additions

Hard corals - SPS
flow - they dont like stuff settling on them so the flow that your softies are in would not be adequate for SPS
softies - they dont like softies , running carbon helps, but the less softies you have in a SPS set up , the happier the SPS corals seem to be IME recently

depending on amount of SPS and size , when you start, you may still continue to be OK with regular partial water changes , but eventually as they grow or you get more, the demands they place will exceed what you can replace with water changes alone
and thats when in addition to testing Calc Alk and Mag - you need the means to replace these elements as they are being utilised

there are various ways of achieving this
amatuer way - buy bottled products and follow the instructions and test weekly to check you are getting it right or if you need to increase any of the main 3 ( this is the way I am doing it)

there are other options like dosing pumps- where you set up 3 bottles of the additives in RO water and a pump on a timer releases a pre set amount - you test regular and adjust settings to fine tune it

in fact Im not really qualified to discuss the keeping of SPS , so Ill leave other aspects of that side of the hobby to others that know far more about it than I do, and I will join you in the learning process.

Steve

 

Listen to everything Steve said. It's right on.

As to the equipment you've got...

Lighting:
You've got plenty of light for a lot of different types of corals. Two MHs on a six foot tank is likely stretching it a bit for full coverage across the tank, but directly under the MHs you should be able to grow just about anything.

Filtration:
You've got a good protein skimmer, plenty of pump (honestly, unless you're pumping through a long length of pipe or using it to power your skimmer, an Iwaki 100 is overkill) and good flow with the two K4s. You might want to consider a couple other circ pumps to keep too many dead spots from happening.

Chemistry:
You don't NEED a Calc reactor or a Kalk stirrer/reactor (or both). You can start with dosing two-part Calc/Alk or a Kalk product (I'm a fan of Brightwell's Kalk +2)

Rock:
You might want to get some more rock.

Talking Corals...

As Steve said, softies and SPS don't do great together. Softies/LPS and LPS/SPS tend to be ok pairings, though. You can always throw in a few softies like zoos. So if you want SPS then I'd stay away from most softies. Maybe start with some easier LPS like a trumpet (one of my favs) or maybe even a torch or something then decide whether you want softies or SPS.

 

Ok....so I will stick with the softies for now.

I was thinking of Teeing off of the Iwaki 100 and going to the skimmer also so that is why I got suck a monster pump. I also have an Iwaki 70 as a backup.

So basically keep doing water changes, test all levels including Calcium, Mag and Alk.

I think I will dose manually for now once I get it all rolling. It probably wont be for another month because I have to replumb everything first.

I just wanted to make sure I didnt need to plumb in any extra stuff for the soft corals.

Also I need some Calcium, and Kalk....does the Brightwell's Kalk +2 do all i need for that and then i would just need Calcium? What about food for them...I see Kent Marine has a bunch of these...which ones do I need? Did I miss anything?

 

ccscsccpc

extra stuff - 2 reactors one for carbon and 1 for GFO (phosphate removal) would be wise investments IMO

softies - things like RODs coral food, cylopeze and liquid phytoplankton can be used, but depending on the softies you keep, may not in actual fact be required
many soft coral can get all they need from the symbiotic algae that lives in their cells and all the algae needs is light

if you do dose liquid coral foods, growth foods, colour foods etc - monitoring your water parameters becomes doubly important IME

Steve