Coral Care

[Mr.September15]

Ellooo, I was wondering how and if you acclimate coral. Is it like fish, where you float it in a bag? Or do you just drop it in. I was watching this video where this guy just got his coral and he just threw it in the tank, im not sure if it survived but thats what I saw. Its possible that he acclimated it but that wasnt shown on the video

 

[SkiFletch]

Either drip water into the container the fish comes in with a small piece of tubing with a knot tied in it to slow down the siphon, or pour small amounts of water into the bag slowly. I float mine in my sump and drip simultaneously

 

[Mr.September15]

Either drip water into the container the fish comes in with a small piece of tubing with a knot tied in it to slow down the siphon, or pour small amounts of water into the bag slowly. I float mine in my sump and drip simultaneously

Alright so you can't float them and just place them?

 

[SkiFletch]

Usually not a good idea. If its something like zoos, leathers, or shrooms that survive thermo nuclear attacks, they'll prolly be fine with just floating and dumping to be honest. Heck I put mine through more hell in our bad power outage and everybody survived, but just floating and placing without acclimating them to the chemistry of your water isnt the greatest thing in the world.

 

[Mr.September15]

Usually not a good idea. If its something like zoos, leathers, or shrooms that survive thermo nuclear attacks, they'll prolly be fine with just floating and dumping to be honest. Heck I put mine through more hell in our bad power outage and everybody survived, but just floating and placing without acclimating them to the chemistry of your water isnt the greatest thing in the world.

Hmm, so how much do you put each time you add water to the bag?

 

[SkiFletch]

If dripping and floating simultaneously is a pain in the rear (its hard when you dont have a sump), try floating the bag, opening it up, and attaching it to the side of your tank with like a clothes pin or one of those black triangular springy binder clips. Then every 10 minutes dump an ounce or two of tank water in the bag with a shotglass . Once you've doubled the water volume in the bag, take the whole thing out, lift the coral out of the bag, and place it where you want. Remember, just like with fish, dont risk putting water from your LFS in your bag.

If you start really getting into acropora there are some other considerations you should be making when adding new colonies to prevent outbreaks of flatworms, redbugs, etc which can kill acros, but that's usually not much of a problem in the nano world since so few people try acros in nanos

 

[Mr.September15]

Yeah for my coral list I was thinking of getting:

Toadstool Mushroom Leather

Kenya Tree Coral

Green Fluorescent Mushroom

Flower / Ricordea Mushroom, Green & Blue

And a Zoanthus Colony (Button Polyps)

 

[N1z]

True u dont want the LFS water well depends if its just a coral tank nothing more however wot about oxygen burning... Cos ive herd of this never really took note of it and the corals seemed fine when out of water for a spit second.

W8 just rememberd on the great barrier reef when the tide goes out their slim protects them for like a good hour until the tide comes back in correct? or am i just bavling a load of tosh?

 

[SkiFletch]

You are correct, there are TONS of places in the world where corals are left in dry air for hours at a time at low tides. Corals can survive with air exposure of a couple minutes with no problem really. Really the only things overly succeptible to air exposure are sponges and some urchins. Sponges are VERY sensitive to air exposure and urchins are sensitive but not quite as much.

 

[Mr.September15]

Yeah for my coral list I was thinking of getting:

Toadstool Mushroom Leather

Kenya Tree Coral

Green Fluorescent Mushroom

Flower / Ricordea Mushroom, Green & Blue

And a Zoanthus Colony (Button Polyps)

Is my list good?

 

[SkiFletch]

All great starter corals

 

[Mr.September15]

All great starter corals

Yeah im cool like that 8)

I'll propably add some other "hard to keep" corals. I'll give it a few months before that. But anyways, do I have to buy any supplements? First I need to pick up a few test thingers what else do I need other than the basics (amonia,nitrate,nitrite,etc.)

 

[Mr Miagi]

No additives, until youve tested your Alk and Calc. Then yo might need to monitor those with some additions, but nothing major. Your nano tanks inhabitants can get anything they need form water changes.

 

[Mr.September15]

So all I need to test other than pH,Nitrate,Nitrite,and Amonia is Alk and Calcium?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, if you start seeing problems, a phosphate test kit might not be the worst thing ever, but then again it would be used so infrequently you could always take a sample to your LFS, thats what I do