New To Corals

[spadge]

Hey guys,

IM new to fish in general let alone corals, in fact my first real dip in the water was on the salty side 2months ago so as you can imagine i like to jump in with both feet, anyways, i just bought a nice size frag of pulsing xzenia and a green(flourescent) mushroom, i believe a green bulls eye mushroom (with all the excitment and advice i kinda....well....didnt listen to the LFS and was just hypnotised.) lol, its appox on a 5 inch peice of rock with about 15/20 good mushrooms on for £17 and the frag of xenia was £5 ........

.... anyways im one for being impatient and although i have researched (thouroughly) i wondered what your guys experience is with these, im aware they are both quite hardy but any tips, advice would be great, for example feeding, amounts how aoften and with what, flow etc.....

Thanks again

 

[ben1987]

Youll do well to kill both of them lol. They really are hardy.

They wont like huge amounts of flow. They will grow best under a decent amount of light. Just make sure you do regular water changes with good reef grade salts and make sure you keep your sg stable with regular top ups. Then they will be fine

telm us more about your set up...equipment, sizes, fish etc

 

[spadge]

Iam actualy going to up a journal, i have a fluval osaka 155, with a sump approx 50 litres, giving me an approximate 200 litres, eheim return pump with 1200l/h and a 3000l/h powerhead, i currently have a 14k 150w metal halide lighting with 2 superbright blue led strips and a tmc 500 compact skimmer (more than i need, lol) my sump currently has 4 sections with various medias,carbon etc and loads of cheato.

With regards to stock i currently house:

5 ceriths
3 redleg hermits
2 yellow tail damsels (which will be returned to LFS)
1 domino damsel in my sump
1 sand sifting starfish
1 yellow tang (on loan for hair algae, and will NOT be staying!! oh and its still small 2inches or less)

have and inch of crushed coral sand and 30lb of live sand, i also have 10kilos of live rock(more on the way) and miracle mud and kora lagoon susbtrate, my tank is approx 2-3mnths old and doing very well so far, still getting some dyatom and cyano but gradually dissapearing.

With regards to the corals, i am new to fish keeping....AT ALL lol this marine setup is my first ever tank, so i picked those too specifically for there toughness, will my mushroom be ok at sand level? my tanks about 24 - 30 inches deep id heard they werent to keen on masses of light? any ideas?

 

[spadge]

come on guys 30 veiws, some one must have some more advice , tis for a newbie? pretty please lol

 

[ben1987]

well with that set up i would keep the two corals mentioned quite low down. id also keep the xenia seperate from your main rock structure as it grows very fast! it will cover anything it comes into contact with in time.

as for teh damsel in your sump id get rid of that too. then you arent wasting fish room for soemthing ugly in your sump.

what are your water params like?

 

[simonas]

Youll do well to kill both of them lol. They really are hardy.

after 9 months my large xenia just disintegrated and went gray!!

A shame as xenia pulse is a lovely coral in my opinion

I have mushrooms as well and they grow and spread very easily. Mine are at the bottom of my tank and they do well and look pretty in that part of the tank

You should have a look at riccordeas as well , similar to mushies and prob from same family and get slightly bigger and more attractive than mushies

Any pics?

 

[lewiss]

We have the exact same tank! Lol. It's nice isn't it !!

 

[spadge]

yes its a sweet tamk lewis, really nice looking and imo great setup for marine too, the damsel is in my sump as it was overly aggressive to ... well.... everything and is going back to my LFS, when i get there lol my local guy agreed to take him back and swap him for something else, yeah they are almost at the bottom of the tank to be honest, my xenia is in part of my rockwork atm but after your suggestion will move him to sand level, i thought they prefered higher light intensitys (xenia) that is, i have just taken some pics, well loads actually so i wil up some, i am also going to do my journal tonight so keep a look out guys and thanks, oh with regards to feeding is it correct they produce most of their food via phoosynthesis thus i wont need to add anything, my LFS did give me some frozen... rotifers i think they are called which contain tiny crustaceans and molluscs, do i really need theses?
as well as checking KH, CA and the normal stats what else am i looking for? does anyone add iodine or trae elements or are water changes enough? i have as you can see i have researched however the info i have was kinda conflicting, so any toughts anyone?

Thanks again.

 

[spadge]

sorry ben missed the params question, ammonia and nitrite 0 nitrate less than 10ppm, ph 8.1, salinity 1.023 and 1/2 (so the guy with the refractometer tells me... they are awesome!!!!!) po3 0/0.25 kh 12 ca 520 and temp 78.2f im new but fingers crossed, touch wood and all that i have kept the tank fairly stable thus far..

Youll do well to kill both of them lol. They really are hardy.

after 9 months my large xenia just disintegrated and went gray!!

A shame as xenia pulse is a lovely coral in my opinion

I have mushrooms as well and they grow and spread very easily. Mine are at the bottom of my tank and they do well and look pretty in that part of the tank

You should have a look at riccordeas as well , similar to mushies and prob from same family and get slightly bigger and more attractive than mushies

Any pics?

with the riccordeas simon are they fairly easy to keep too? would i need to do anything in particular? im hoping to FIL my tank with corals and am currently breeding some geckos which my LFS (also does reptiles) is going to take from me for livestock/corals so im making a list too, any more ideas on what i should look at guys? what are your favourites? oh simon are the riccordeas the ones that are a pain to keep in one spot? im sure i was reading a poston here about the detatching.

 

[simonas]

I have two different types of riccordea and much prefer them to my mushies. they are more attractive than the mushies
Mine have never detatched although I've had one split into two which was bizarre