What do i need to keep the corals healthy

[volks]

Dear all,

I would like to keep the following corals, need advise what supplement , additives, food to provide in order to keep them healthy.

1. hammer coral

2. Xenie coral

3. Frogspawn coral

4. bubble coral

5. alveopora coral

6. mushroom

7.fox coral

8. sun coral

i have a 2'x1.8'x1.5' tank, using PL 2x55w .

thanx in advance.

[FuEl]

Suggest you skip xenia for now..they are prone to sudden crashes.

Skip suncoral for now as feeding them will put great strains on ur bioload...try them when your tank is more mature.

[ah^siao]

hmm.. water temp? keep it low.. around 25 to 27

[lightningstrike]

supplements..... hmm....... use trace elements, strotium, iodide, magnesium,

[Achilles Tang]

I don't advise people putting trace elements in their tank because most of these are already available in saltmix in very high concentrations... adding more trace elements may possibly lead to heavy metal buildups in your sandbed and LR and cause a crash later on.

There are no test kits to measure trace elements... hence the danger.

Using a calcium reactor will furnish you with almost all the natural trace elements naturally.

You should pick up a good coral book to understand more about coral needs.

[Dazza]

Perhaps u shud start with mushrooms first n then slowly move to the others

[ah^siao]

yesh.. start with mushroms.. they are the easiest to keep..

then as u becomes more experience then change to others like hammers frogspawn and stuff

[FuEl]

Corals that are LPS like open brains, moon corals, bubbles also need to be fed. Just observe them after lights out and you can notice feeder tentacles coming out. I feed mine mysis every night.

[volks]

thanx all for the advises , I will heel them and select with this information.

AT, could you elabrate : what is a calcium reactor?

Which brand is recommended?

Where could i get them?

Thanx

[ryz]

AT most salt mixes have trace elements in very minute amounts and often exaggerate the quality of their product. I suggest you get a good salt mix(usually expensive) I would suggest you getting the "marine environment dualphase formula" salt mix. Pricey but good. It has a small bottle of trace elements calcium, strontium iodine etc. Best salt mix (according to some review, do a search on salt mixes review). With a good salt mix, just do regular water changes of 10%- 15% every week or 25% every month. That should replrenish the supply of all the required chemicals and also remove nitrate, toxins etc. Lighting is also one of the fundamentals in keeping your corals healthy. what size is your tank? I would suggest you get MH or 2 PCs of the highest possible Wattage. For starters, don't keep hard corals (SPS or LPS) maybe you could get away with a fox coral. Otherwise get some zooanthids or mushrooms. They are less demanding in lighting and are hardy.

PH : 8.1 - 8.3

dKH: 8 - 11

Temp: 25 - 28 degrees celsius

SG: 1.024 - 1.026 ( I know it says 1.021 to 1.023 on the hydrometer, but my range is better for inverts)

Calcium : 420 - 450 ppm (if you're keeping hard corals)

Get the Marine Environment dual phase formula salt mix and follow the instructions and you shouldn't have any problems. Maybe you might need to get Ph and KH buffers thats all. Do your regular water changes religiously.

And for calcium reactors, you don't need one. Unless you're tank is a full Hard corals Tank. Otherwise kalkwasser or other calcium supplements would suffice. Just remember to maintain it at 420 - 450 ppm(parts per million)

[volks]

thanx ryz, veri infromative, currently i am using

2'x15.5'x1.8' tank

2011 protein skimmer

temp: 27-28

2xPL tube (55w/tube, white 12000k, blue 17000k)

btw, what is kalkwasser? correct me if i am wrong:

is the above mention is similar to calcium , just that it is in German? if not where to get kalkwasser?

Thanx

[alanseah]

ypu can get kalkwasser by this brand..

Reefez kalkwasser selling at 10 now going to sell at 12 plus and another is the Reefez Calcium Plus selling at 11 going to sell at 13 or 15 forget the price already..

As for the ph and kh buffer you can go for the kent super dkh buffer middle size cost you around 12 only..

lastly 2 PC lighting is not strong enough.. best is to use 4 PC lighting.. 2 white and 2 blue.

Lastly add your live stock slowly.. if you add everything in a rush it will surely crush your system.

[ryz]

as fir your lighting, it is almost enough. You can just supplement it with another actinic. Otehrwise your lighting would do fine too. PCs emit light of 3+ time the intensity of Fluorescent lighting. Thus going by the watts per gallon rule, you have 110x3watts divided by whatever gallon your tank is(I think it's around 18). Therefore It is sufficient to keep most corals. Some debate that it is insufficient for all SPS and clams. But many have proven that it can be done under PCs.

Kalkwasser is a form of highly-purified calcium hydroxide. Kalkwasser=german for limewater. It is a calcium supplement used to maintain calcium levels and dKH(alkalinity or degree of carbonate hardness) Mainly used to raise and maintain calcium levels. Calcium is needed by hard corals as they have a calcium carbonate skeleton and need more calcium for their skeleton to grow.

Kalkwasser: in powder form, need to dissolve in watering can before adding to your tank. add only the clear solution that you get. Undissolved remnants that setlle at the bottom must not be added to the main tank. after adding the clear solution. add more water to the watering can until the undisolved remnants are dissolved then you can add that to the tank as well. Maintaining your calcium levels at 420-500ppm would be a good range for healthy coral growth.