I am brand new to the hobby. My tank is about 5weeks old. I completed my cycle in about 3 weeks. I have a 20 gallon tank with about 25lbs of live rock and 3" live sand bed. It is setup with a Koralia nano, 24" Coralife Lunar AquaLight with 130watts, Instant Ocean 100gal HOB protein skimmer, and a top fin filter(came with the tank from Petsmart). I have added 5 small hermits, 6snails of various species, one purple fire fish, one six line wrasse, one Galaxia coral, one chili coral, one frogspawn coral, and three frags from Reef Fest this weekend (duncan, blue chalice, and the montipora). I have added some pics of the tank so far. I do not plan on adding any more fish but would like my tank full of corals. I wanted to know if anybody could help make some recommendations. I was thinking about an acan. Also should the montipora and blue chalice frags be placed directly on my live rock as pictured or placed on a frag disc?
The monti and calice will encrust to the rocks if not disturbed by flow or hermit crabs but you can mount them if you wish. The method that Paul Witby uses is a very good way to get them to grow fast by putting sand on any glue that is exposed so the coral can continue to grow at a steady rate. Me personally I would mount them to a rock so it looks more natural. You could get some colorful zoanthids or a leather, those will fill space nicely. Acans are a very good choice if you can handle the price of them. Just remember not to stock to much to quick because some things might grow faster than you think. Some coral aren't to nice when they touch so do some reseach before purchasing coral you don't want a coral chemical war to take place. welcome to the club and happy reefing
graciesdad - your tank is coming along nicely ! Pretty chili coral ! +1 on the colorful zoanthids & you should have good success with all the softies. One coral that I really enjoy is my torch, flows so beautifully. Start a tank thread in "Tank Pictures" It always fun to follow the progress of another tank & it's cool to look back over time and see how your tank has developed & changed.
You have plenty in a 3 week old tank, do like Sam says and let it age for a few months. You well go through a new tank brown algae bloom yet that well need some controlling. The fire fish needs to be fed aleast once a day as their gut is small and they don't graze on the rock like others. Take your time and nice tank.
Thanks for the info everyone! Cindy, I got the chili coral from Northside. I think that I even saw one there at reef fest. Mine was real shy at first. He didn't really open for about a week. But it seems like he never closes now. He is definitely one of my favorites.
Your tank looks great and you got some of the really nice frags for Reef Fest, congrats. I do want to make a comment about the chilli coral that you have. There are several species that are going by the name chilli coral: one is the Alcyonium sp. which is more formed like a finger leather with a red base and white polyps, the other is the Nepthygoria sp. which is a whitish base (stalk) with dark red branches which looks for like what you purchased. The Nepthygoria is in the family of the Dendronepthya corals which have not been kept for any length of time in a closed captive environment. The problem is that these corals are exclusive filter feeders and to make matter worse they require the water flow around them to be in such a way to shape their polyps so that they can capture food. Currently, work has been done using cylindrical tanks and water flow in an effort to duplicate the type of flow necessary for them to survive. The colors of this coral make it hard to resist and I am sure you will find some that say they have kept this coral for more than a year but that is rare. I just thought you should know that at best this is a coral for the experience hobbyist who is willing to experiment with water flows and target feeding on a frequent basis.
Marti at Northside sold me the chili coral and gave me pointers on its care. I have obviously kept him out of light and I target feed 2-3 times a week. This was my first coral to put in the tank and it is seems to be doing very well so far. He opens up daily and has already grown a new arm. So, so far so good. I hope he continues to thrive. I will keep everyone posted.
