Suggestions for beginner coral(s)

[holdorf333]

I know that there are many threads explaining good beginner species. I was just curious what you more experienced people have to recommend for my 10gal FOWLR. I have kept FW for about 4 years, and have found this tank to be absolutely wonderful.

Stats:
14lbs cured live rock
10lbs live sand
Penguin 20 power filter
Rio nano skimmer
36w 50/50 PC (Coralife bulb and housing) modified from 24” to 20” and vent holes drilled above ballast



SG= 1.023, Temp= 78 deg F, Calcium= approx 380 ppm, KH= 160 ppm, pH= 8.2, no detectable ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. I use RO/DI from a LFS, Instant Ocean salt and do 20% WC weekly.

It is a habitat to:
1 Six-line wrasse
1 purple pseudo.
2 turbo snails
1 blue-legged hermit



The circulation works out to be about 20x per hour. I run regular filter pad in the Rio, and carbon-impregnated filter pad in the Penguin. The tank cycled in under 3 days (!) with distinct spikes. It also remains curiously clean and clear after 2 months. Maybe the miracle of filtration with a combination of water changes?? I had my eye on Pulsing Xenia and a few others, but am ALWAYS looking for the advice from those more experienced than myself. Thank you for your time!

[ATX aquarist]

You can't keep any SPS or corals which require higher light, but I would suggest mushroom corals and various poylps. With the right selection and placement these can make a very beautiful aquascape

[JRaquatics]

I would remove the biowheel if you notice your nitrates rise.
Zoas, leathers, mushrooms, some LPS. Just what are you interested in.

[holdorf333]

ATX, thank you. What would be a good ratio for light?

JRaquatics, thank you for the tip. I will keep a close eye on that.

So LPS and mushrooms seem to be the most popular. Would the aquascape need to be modified?

[ATX aquarist]

Well if you're planning on changing your light, I would say 5-8 watts per gallon would be ideal. The aquascape seems fine to me. If you pile the rocks a little you can get the corals closer to the light.

[amoryodio]

yeah, i would just add a bit more LR on top of the stuff you already have to put some corals higher up

[holdorf333]

No nitrate spikes, but I dropped the bio-wheel anyway. No reason to wait until the water quality goes south! Got 2 more pounds of LR, curing as we speak. Thinking about going to a glass top, and the Coralife 96w PC strip light.

Is that too much light? Anyone use this fixture?

[reefman13]

The coralife 96W will be perfect. You will be able to keep ALMOST all of the corals, as some of the SPS corals out ther will require more flow and more light. You may even be able to keep a clam and anemone if those are things you are interested in....But I do have the 3' 96W PC lamp over my 50g running as a moon light and it does a great job.

Good luck and keep up updated w/ pics

[holdorf333]

Just got an arrow crab. Cleans det. and food particles wonderfully! I noticed a small white pod on the purple pseudo. It is about .5mm in diameter, amd right at the base of it's right pectoral fin. Any ideas? I will post pics in a few minutes...

[holdorf333]

Today, I purchased my first corals:
1 zooanthid polyp ($5)
2 green mushrooms ($5/ea)
1 small kenyan tree frag ($5)

I picked a parasite off the purple pseudo. and he/she seems fine. Thet are starting to open up after about 1 hour in the tank, and I hope all goes well!

Zoos:

Shrooms:

Tree:


Wish me luck and feel free to comment and give advise!

[Saltwaterstart]

They are opening up, but are not completely open.

Wait a bit and then you will see how big they are.

[gsusfreak]

be careful with that kenya tree...once they are big enough to frag themselves...you've have more than you want ......they grow fast, and spread quick....dont get me wrong, i like them and all...but i had to cut down my forest cause it was just over taking the tank

[holdorf333]

Wow. I remember seeing the 'shrooms in the LFS, but I guess I didn't figure how they would look in this tank. They are HUGE. They look great though. I will get a FTS as soon as everything settles down.

I'll keep a close eye on the tree, TY for your advice gsusfreak.

[cwilson]

looking good!

if you are still concerned about your light, and are still considering upgrading, i would not rely on the watts per gallon ratio. heres why:

at an old LFS by me, they were breeding black onyx percula clown fish is a small 20 gallon tank. to keep the anemone alive, they had a total of almost 300 watts of lighting on that small tank. so if you do the math (300 watts / 20 gallons), you get 15 watts per gallon. but if you consider a 90 gallon tank with 600 watts provided by 2X250 halides and 2X50 T5, which could allow you to keep a wide selection of corals, that devides into being less than 7 watts per gallon (600/90=6.66)

the best way i know to determine light is by the height of the tank. you said you have a 10 gallon. i believe those are only about 14-16" tall, correct? being under 20inches tall, i believe you could be fine with a nice T5 light, or maybe a 75W halide (although that will generate quite a bit of heat). a cheap solution would be to simply be an addition light like the one you have. then get rid of that black plastic hood on your tank, and put the two on top of your tank. this will give you a lot of light, enough to grow most corals with the exception of mose SPS, and you can keep your existing light which will save you money (which as all reefers know, is a good thing )

but all things concerned, i think you'll be fine with the light you have

let us know if you find products that catch your eye, as well as what you end up purchasing. good luck!

[sprinj76]

Looks good so far.

I am following this page since I am trying to decide on beginner corals for my tank as well.

[zack85]

nice tank. get some green star polyps - theyre pretty & will grow in anything!

[holdorf333]

I saw a few of them (green stars) and thought they looked great! I looked into your suggestion, cwilson, and saw that Current USA makes a 40W PC w/ moon lights for about $55. So that in conjunction with a new 50/50 bulb for the coralife, and that will give me 76w over 10g with a glass top.

Because I could put them on seperate timers, what does everone think about going Full Ac. on the Coralife (36w) and the stock 50/50 (40w) on the Current? Too blue?

While I am at it, I also have a spare Rio 400 and AquaClear 20 powerheads. Too much flow if one were hooked up?

[cwilson]

although youve got the right idea, and putting your lights on a timer is something every tank should have, there is something you should consider. having such a small tank, your light may look like it is striped. my first setup was a 55gallon and i got a 2X65 PC, which had 50/50's. i loved it, but it just wasnt enough, so i purchased a 4X65, which gave me great amounts of light. however, that did not have 50/50's it just had two pure 10K's and two pure actinics. the problem with that was when you looked at the tank, the front half appeard kinda white/yellow, and the back looked blue/purple. if you do get the bulbs you want, make sure the order of bulbs goes (AC)(AC) (10K)(AC). does that makes sense? its really something you'll see once you do it.

as far as being 'too blue' its pretty hard to have it be 'too lbue' to the point of affecting your inverts. most corals do eed SOME actinic, its spectrum helps growth and all that good stuff. personally, i like blue-heavy lighting. for a while i used only 20K halide bulbs, which people thought looked WAY over blue, but i loved it. even with just the half of your PC being 10K (which would be 18W, correct?), you should have enough 10K. if you look at your 76W total, and consider 18W 10K, that means about 25% of your lighting is 10K. that seems like not that much, but then your total light will still be under 100W, it souldnt be a concern.

basically, if you like the 10K/AC. balance of your existing light, keep the 50/50 in. if you want to try more blue, buy the bulb. the the main issue you will run into, is anything you change is about 25% of you light, which is a rather big change. i had a 8X54W T5 light, and when i swapped out one bulb for a different one, you could hardly tell. this let me really customize my exact look, because i could "fine tune" the balance of 10K and AC. unfortunatly, you cant really do that.

a nice in between spectrum in 14K. it looks like a 50/50, but its just a bit more... crisp, i guess. i know they have halides and T5's in that spectrum, but ive never seen a PC like that. but also take into consideration i have looked for one. but still, you may have to hunt to find it.

let us know what you choose to do, and post picks of the (possibly-soon-to-be) light system

(sorry about the wordy responce, sometimes i tend to ramble on. hopefully what makes sense to me makes sense to others, although thats not always the case )

[cwilson]

and as far as the powerheads are concerned, just try adding one first. trey to angle it so it does not add to any existing currents you have from your skimmer and such. as long as you dont have sand blowing all over your tank, your flow is fine (for the most part). another thing you can do is point the powerhead directly at a rock. this way, the "brute force" of the flow is pounded into the rock and your not blasting the hell out of your 10gal, but you still get added water movement.

the aquaclear will be fine to put anywhere (if your worried about sand blowing, put it up at the top. which reminds me! put one up by the top just shooting across your surface, this will hopefully help yyou with surface tension). im not sure about the rio, ive never used their smaller pumps. that should be fin too, though. i wouldnt add any more after that.

but as everyone in this hobby knows, its all about the trial and error. if you dont like it, jsut take it out

[yankeereefer]

Originally posted by zack85
get some green star polyps - theyre pretty & will grow in anything!

IMO, I'd stay away from gsp, xenia and anthelia

Although they are very "pretty" with a lot of movement, they will very quickly take over your LR and run over / smother it's neighbors.

I just pulled out a bunch of rock from my 20H - I filled a 5.5g tank with a 3 of the above. It'll go into my sump when I finally get it together.

[holdorf333]

yankeereefer, thank you for that advice. Real Estate is certainly at a premium in this tank!

cwilson, thank you for the detailed response. The order of bulbs (AC)(AC) (10K)(AC) would be easy to accomplish, and I agree with you on the "bluer" look being pleasing. I would very much like to go T5, but i have a quirk that drives me nuts when the light hangs over the edge 2" on either side. I had considered a 10K, 70w MH pendant that had 2x18w PC Acs. on the sides. Decisions, decisions.....

Craptastic wider angle shot. Much harder to do than I originally thought...


Tree fully opened:

[cwilson]

those kenya trees are great corals. it should do very well in your tank.

GREAT looking sand too! its so fresh and so clean!

[holdorf333]

2 months old will do that.

[cwilson]

if your looking into a halide, i know JBJ makes a 'viper' series that come in both a 70W and 150W, and they are very affordable. i believe the bulbs are 14K, which would give you a very nice balance of blue and white. whats nice about them, is they clip onto the back of your tank; truly plug-n-play (which as quite uncommon, as im sure youve found out )

also, if you want a blue-heavy ligt system, having a clip on halide will give you room to possibly leave your PC ballest on the tank.

just as an FYI, you might here some hard-core reefers bashing the JBJ halide, and for their application, they have good reason. one of the biggest factors of a halide's performance is the design/size of the reflector. the JBJ's have a rather small reflector, so if you were to put it next to somehting like an Aquamedic of the same wattage, it will look much more like a spotlight, which is something you want to avoide. but having sucha a small tank, you should be able to use even the 70W and have the light cover all corners of your tank.

and if you got the halide, the number of corals you could grow/keep would expand gretaly (open brains, moon corals, ricordia, fox, maybe even a clam if thats something youve been thinking about)

but, that isnt to say this is something that HAS to be done, i think you would be fine with your current light or even the double ballest like we talked about. it really just depends on what you would like to keep.

you can find the JBJ at www.marinedepot.com and possibly an LFS by you

let us know what you choose to do; looking great so far!

[holdorf333]

Thnak you so much for the help, cwilson. You are NOT kidding. They are very cheap! Perfect size for the tank with a glass top, which I will be buying today because....

Purple pseudo is dead. It found a tiny slot in the cover and I found it dryed up on the floor..... *sigh