What do i do now?

[aflores3]

i finally got my tank to the point i've been working for, but now i'm faced with another dilemma. what do i do now? I have a 55 gal with 100+# of lr, a 3-4" sand bed, 2 x 250w mh lamps, and a precision marine HOT-1 protein skimmer. the tank has been up for about 14 months, but the protein skimmer has only been running about 1 week. as far as livestock, i have a pair of clowns a damsel, and a kole tang. i also have a mushroom colony, button polyps, star polyps, and yellow polyps. i'd like to get more coral, but i dont know what i should get. i'd like to keep mainly softies and eventually get a clam, but i'm open to anything. does anyone have any suggestions as to what i should look for. again, i'm relatively new to the hobby, so i would like something that i can keep. also, should i start dosing kalk? i dont add anthing right now, just bi-monthly water changes. thanks in advance

[wizardgus®]

Not sure from your post if you are testing...but you should be. Especially before you start dosing or supplementing your tank. At a minimum you should be testing NH4, NO2, NO3, PO4, Ca., Alk., and pH. You can then tell what you should be doing in that regard (Kalk, etc.)

As for softies, one of my favorites that would fit in would be a Colt coral. Anthelia is another good one though they will spread. You might try a Monitipora sp. with your lighting should do well if you wanted an SPS starter.

[Siddroww]

Dosing kalk would be a good thing to do to open up the door for some stoney corals , and you will need it anyhow for the clam when your ready . A nice green open brain in the sand at the base of your rock would be great . If your thinking SPS , the montipora sp. as wiz. mentioned or the montipora digata would be good , but you need to dose kalk or some kind of calcium for stoneys . A hammer is a great stoney coral but hogs up alot of room .

Other softies I like are the colt as mentioned , toadstool leathers , Pulsating xenias ( if you can find propagated ones local , they dont ship well ) , or maybe you could add some other types of leathers like devils hand or finger leather .


As mentioned you should be testing your parameters .

[L and L]

First of all... Welcome to Reef Central

Next, I agree w/ Sid. I would start dosing Kalk and testing your Alkalinity and Calcium levels. Once you get comfortable adding kalk and maintaining good levels of these... then I would add these ones they recommended.

I started with Open Brain coral, Toadstool (sarcophyton) leather, Xenia, Torch Coral, and Frogspawn.

[goofball310]

Before you start dosing anything you should test your water!

Since you haven't dosed anything before, I would start with an easy supplement to dose like B-Ionics Calcium Buffer System. It's a two part supplement for both alkalinity and calcium.

The problem with dosing kalk from a beginners level is that you might dose too much and raise you alkalinity and drop your calcium levels. So unless you comfortable dosing kalk, you might want to hold off on that.

The advantage of dosing kalk is that it will raise your alkalinity, calcium, and lower your phosphate levels. Lowering the chances of nuicanse algae.

Once you become comfortable dosing then you should try to dose kalk w/ your calcium supplement.

[goofball310]

WELCOME TO REEF CENTRAL!!!!!

Starter coral:
LPS:
Xenia, Colt, Bubble, Polyps, Torch, Frogspawn, Hammer
SPS:
Montepora
Clams:
Squamosa & Derasa

Hold off on the clams until you stabalize your calcium and alkalintiy levels.

[DgenR8]

aflores3,
[welcome]