Coral Grow On Tanks, Advice Needed :)

[Pearsondesign]

hey guys, ok i have my new tanks setup

gonna be attempting to grow coral frags and try to make some money from it... i hope lol

ok, so the tank is in place, has been running for a week tomorrow with saltwater in running external canistor and internal small filter for particle pick up and more flow.
at present i have 2 T8 marine whites and a marine blue on the tank.
the tank is empty except for a 2 inch bed of coral sand.
the tank is 40x24x15

im gonna start with xenia and some other simpler corals, maybe kenya tree and a few other ones like maybe colt coral.

can anyone think of anything ive missed? has anyone else done this before?

i will be adding a skimmer after a few months of setup.

i dont intend on having fish in here aswell, but ive heard that having 1 or 2 is benefiscial to the coral grow tanks. is this true?
should i also bother adding shrimp? as far as i know they are only worth adding to have something to look at lolo, not sure if they do anything positive for corals...

heres a pic of the tank setup this was taken before i added the other lighting, but you get the idea

and heres a pic of the rack the tanks are in. top one is for my 7 turtles. 6 musks and 1 ouachita map.
bottom tank will be used for mixing water for reef, fish only and coral tanks

comments? what do you all think?
has anyone got any frags they want to donate or do a good deal on? ill return the favours once its established
looking to sell online, but members here will have first pick

cheers,
Edd

 

[ben1987]

i think it looks a nice little set up, but i dont think you will ever make your money back/much profit.

people will pay what? a fiver for a frag of xenia...some people give it away. It would be really cool to do for a hobby and ive got a frag tank planned on my new build...but so i can swap them and get frags that i dont have for my tank.

as for the fish.. it would be good to add a couple of live rocks and then maybe get a pair of small bangais or something then when they mature they may breed. more likely to make a few quid out of them tbh

getting into different coloured Zoas would be good too..they would fetch a bit more than xenia but i think running and maintainance out does income from small systems

 

[Pearsondesign]

hmmm, i know what you mean.

thing is with breding cardinals or clowns, yeah its fairly easy but they are like the guppies of the marine world. every shop has them and they are widely available.

i do think there is money to be made from corals, but probably from hard corals as opposed to soft

i plan on having 4 or 5 high output leds or a halide over the tank eventually so i will be ablke to maintain hard corals properly, but for now itll be softies

any other recommendations on corals?
richordia? (sp?) or pussy corals? what about mushroom polyps? are they easy to grow on?

i will get some nice live rock, my LFS has some beautiful pieces at the moment
once thats in i think ill add some hardier fish, but not damsels this time lol
again, any suggestions?
i was thinking a pair of clowns maybe...

 

[ben1987]

Those shops get them from somewhere i suggested banggais as they are a little easier to feed than clowns and generally have a higher value than a single common clown.

LPS take a long time to grow new skeleton so would be hard to do these

SPS grow quickly in the right conditions. but to achieve these conditions means more equipement and higher running costs. my little frag section will be shallow and light by 4xT5s to save running another halide. It will be connected up to my main system, so one skimmer, one water change and the tank will run balling so will be stable all the time.

 

[seffieuk]

I agree with ben, the rarer zoas are always sought after and people pay more for them

Seffie x

 

[Pearsondesign]

awesome, Zoas it is then

as for having it linked to my main tanks, i cant its in a totally different room in my house

my reef and fish only tanks are in my living room, and my breeding tanks are out in back room its very noisy in here! lol

 

[Harry1996]

if you want rare zoathids then how about theses http/coventrycritters.co.uk/shop.html?page=shop.browse&category_id=93

 

[-Nemo-]

This is why I breed AND frag corals.

I work at my lfs so my clowns either go there or to individual people. You'd be surprised, however, how much ANY captive bred fish are in demand. If I go into another shop and happen to mention I bred, they jump all over me.

I would also add ricordia to your list, even the common ones tend to be in high demand and the rare ones go for a ton of money.

I have my frags growing in my main tank behind a rock, so you can't see it from the front, once the new tank is up I want to use my refugium for frags instead.

 

[Pearsondesign]

awesome!
im getting all excited about this project now

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I have often thought about doing this before but to make any real money out of it you need to get a lot of large, high colour, hard to get colonies and have enough equipment and time to get them growing quickly.

However as nemo said tank breed marine fish are always in demand (even ones you might think are common like clowns). Yes cardinals and clowns are "easy" to breed but not so easy that everyone is doing it. Clowns are actually fairly difficult to raise the fry and not too many people breed marine fish at all.

The other thing to think about is that over the next 10 years I believe we are going to start seeing a lot more restrictions on what can be imported so it is important that we learn to culture what stock we already have.

So yeah, basically don't do it with the idea that you will make money out of it (because overall you probably wont). However doing it just for the love of doing it will be infinity more rewarding. It is very satisfying to see a new coral colony growing. Especially when you give it to someone else then see it again a few months or a year later to see how well it has done and to know that it came from your tanks.

In terms of practical advice:
Keep the water as shallow as possible. Less water means better light penetration which means not having to use as much light.

On the same vain use frag racks of different heights. This means you can keep corals of different heights as close to the waters surface as possible.

Personally I would ditch the sand. Bare bottom tanks are easier to maintain.

If you do have corals that need to be placed in sand then use a tuppaware container to keep the sand and coral in.

Don't add shrimp, they will often steal food from corals and run all over them.

Some people add fish to their frag tanks. If you do you will have to take a different approach (not keep it so shallow and have LR, etc).

Personally I would keep my breeding tanks and frag tanks separate as the ideal setup for both is very different and having a tank that will work for both will be a compromise.

Don't use LR in the system. Yes it can add a number of good things to the system but it can also add a whole bunch of bad stuff too (nobody wants to buy frags covered in pests). If you do want to use LR in the frag tank then put it in a separate tank for a good period of time and watch it closely for the usual pests.

Get some good snails for CUC (not too many though) Cerith and dove snails (as many as you can get hold of) would be my ideal choice. Ceriths are big but dont "bulldoze" as much as turbos so will keep the tank generally clean. Dove snails are very small, should multiple rapidly and will keep the frags nice and clear. Also dove snails are a welcome hitch hiker in most peoples tanks so its an added bonus for them too.

Think about culturing your own phyto and rotifiers. A lot of soft corals wont need to be fed but some (like zoa's) will grow a lot quicker when regularly fed a mix of phyto/rots. LPS corals will generally grow a lot quicker when regularly fed mysis or similar as well.

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Pearsondesign]

cheers Barney

the main reason for me doing this is to keep myself busy. i suffer from a lower back problem and havent worked for over 5 years now so my fish tanks keep me entertained and give me something to aim towards

what i think im going to do is setup the middle tank for just the coral grow on, then the same size bottom tank ill use for other corals but also with fish that way i can have the best of it all the only problem i can think is that the bottom tank is very low, and i have cats
i coulod always get some glass lids i suppose, but then doesnt it filter out the light spectrum for corals??

 

[-Nemo-]

Agree with the phyto and rotifers
Very simple to grow and worth it. I started them for my clowns but I pour extra into my tank once or twice a week. My corals thank me by growing more

 

[Pearsondesign]

hey guys

ok, i got some frags today
only 4 to start, get money next week so will go crazy then hehe

got some kenya tree, some button mushroom things, some pulsing xenia and some bright green ricordia (sp?)

also i have upped the lighting to 2 T5 whites, one of which is the high output 14000k marine white 54w bulb
also i added 2 marine white T5s to my reef tank, so it now has 2 marine white T5s and a white T8 and a blue T8 much better!

im poor now though
ill try and get some good pics of the frags, my camera keeps coming out all liney and weird

 

[Pearsondesign]

ok, its been a while since i put pics up so here are some new ones

obviously the plan changed when i was burgled and the fish only tsnk was smashed, but here it is at the moment

yes, lol, i realise i have lots of algae growth but it was unavoidable with the short space of time i had to save my fish and do water changes had to use tap water as opposed to the normal RO
but, its getting there slowly, im very out of pocket now after the robbery so im leaving this to do its thing for a while now

comments please