When is it Safe to Begin to Add Corals

[Spartanwarrior]

Hey All,

So my first tank I inherited from a friend as a thriving ecosystem. No cycled needed.

My 200G 2nd tank is fully cycled and been running with 2 wrasses, a yellow tang, 4 chromis, a midas blenny (transferred over) and a scooter wrasse for a total of around 5 weeks. I was adding enough ammonia to raise levels to 2-3ppm over the course of 3 weeks, so I knew the high bioload could be handled. The sandbed and rocks have a light coat of diatoms I can control with a small vaccum but overall for 2 weeks I've yet to have any nutrient spikes or algae growth. I have some snails and such keeping the diatoms to a minimum but its a very small CUC until I need more.

For some reason, I am hesitant to begin to add easy corals such as leathers, Kenya trees, shrooms, etc. I've had a thriving tank for over a year and to see these corals wither away has me doubting if its ready and overthinking everything now.

My tanks parameters are good. Alk pretty steady at 7dKH, phosphates low, nitrates around 15ppm, skimmer is working on overdrive, I have an ATO working, carbon, a nice size fuge. No doser set up yet but could always manually dose if it comes to that.


So experts, is it time to add LPS? Talk me off the ledge.

 

[Spartanwarrior]

Anyone have an opinion?

 

[rsinanan415]

Go for it, I?ve added corals sooner and had them thrive. Take the plunge lol

 

[marrone]

I would add the leather coral, kenya trees, and green plays first and see how they do before moving on to hard corals. These type coral usually like a dirtier type water and don't have too much of a demand on Alk of Calk so they should be fine.

 

[Aces full]

if you're leveled out and feel confident in the stability of the tank then go for it...GO SLOW.


What i would caution against (I've seen a lot of people do this, and done it myself) is getting "easy" corals like leathers and other stuff just because they have the "itch." You end up with a lot of stupid coral that you don't want and nobody wants to take off your hands. Wait until you're comfortable and get what you want...not just stuff to fill space.


The old adage "nothing good in a reef ever happens fast" is entirely accurate.


I just started another tank and i intend on taking my own advice above.


What I did: Wait until I feel like it's stable (for me this is 2 weeks of predictable/steady parameters) and then wait another two weeks to be sure.


Reef tanks are like sprained ankles. If you don't wait until they're fully healed, even though they feel like it, they won't ever heal completely or "the right" way.


Like i said, go slow, add no more than a couple pieces at a time, and make sure everything is stable before adding more.

 

[Spartanwarrior]

thanks Aces. Since I started this post, I've added almost my entire contingent of leathers, zoos, gonis, gongorians and shrooms to the new tank from the old. just 8 days ago I added a few frags of my sps (pocci and tri color valida) and they're still extended and alive and fully colored, so I am taking all these as great signs.
Battling a bit of cyano but nothing I cant handle myself siphoning and blasting. bit a brown hair algae that the turbos seem to take care of.
but thanks for the response always appreciated

 

[Aces full]

thanks Aces. Since I started this post, I've added almost my entire contingent of leathers, zoos, gonis, gongorians and shrooms to the new tank from the old. just 8 days ago I added a few frags of my sps (pocci and tri color valida) and they're still extended and alive and fully colored, so I am taking all these as great signs.
Battling a bit of cyano but nothing I cant handle myself siphoning and blasting. bit a brown hair algae that the turbos seem to take care of.
but thanks for the response always appreciated

If it looks happy it probably is! Good luck! Have you tried moving your flow around to help the cyano problem? deadspots are like a cyano breeding ground lol.

 

[Spartanwarrior]

I'm actually picking up a maxspect gyre 250 today to go along with the 2 mp40s and 2 sea swirl returns, which i thought would be enough but isn't by far. Hopefully that will get the lower layers moving a bit bc the rockwork is pretty damn permanently expoxed together.