Newbie reefer

[Gluestick]

My tank has been up for about 4 months now. Everything looks great, hardly any algae. This is my first tank, and I eventually want to keep SPS and LPS, but I'd like to start out with a few easy corals. When do you think would be a good time to start adding corals and what would you recommend to start with? How much does everyone usually charge for frags? I've been adding fish very slowly, so far I have 2 perculas, 1 royal gramma, 1 firefish, and 1 (very docile) yellowtailed blue damselfish. I also have several hermits and snails. Thanks in advance for any advice on starting with corals! I'm so excited to get started!

[ChemE]

Gluestick,

I'd say as long as your water parameters are in line you can start adding corals now. You say you've been adding fish slowly but you've got 5 fish and a 4 month old tank...are you quarantining all your livestock for 1 month before adding it to your display? You might had QT'ed all those fish together or in several batches but it never hurts to ask.

That said, some good first corals are mushrooms, pulsing xenia, green star polyps, and zooanthids. From what I understand, many club members charge little to nothing for frags for people starting/upgrading.

[Gluestick]

The first three fish I did not QT. I did QT my percs together. I plan to QT all future additions. I don't test regularly. I use phosguard and my algae is very low. Everyone looks healthy, so I don't feel that there is reason to test all the time. However, now that I am going to start adding corals, I am going to start testing regularly. Also, I do a 5 gallon water change every week, religiously. When I started the tank I was doing larger changes, but for the past 2 months I have been doing 5s.

[ChemE]

If you have enough live rock and live sand, ammonia and nitrite will never be a problem so I wouldn't bother testing for those. Focus on sg, pH, alk, calc, and nitrate. As you move on to more demanding corals you might expand your testing to include magnesium and iodide.

[Gluestick]

Does anyone have any frags they would like to sell to a newbie to help start a reef?

[schmoeger6]

I've got several easier frags if you are interested. I've got Xenia, Frogspawn, and several different kinds of Zoo's. And I'm only about 20 or 25 minutes from Diamond.

Dave

[Gluestick]

That would be awesome, Dave. I know exactly where Dwight is at. Do you have any pics? How much would you charge? I have never kept corals before, so I will need some instructions :-) Thanks so much! Let me know!

[keto]

you must be next to coal city, I grew up in that area moved away in 95.

[Gluestick]

Yeah, that's us. :-)

[schmoeger6]

If you want to PM me your email I can send some pictures. I'm not sure how to post them on here.

[ChemE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7584653#post7584653 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by schmoeger6
If you want to PM me your email I can send some pictures. I'm not sure how to post them on here.

You can upload pictures to a free hosting site like www.photobucket.com and then wrap the link to the pictures in image tags like this...

http://www.dragonhome.org/~lucas/image_post.PNG