Anenome & Coral maintenance???

Makaiveli

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Feb 6, 2004
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I've never managed corals or anenome's, yet would like to create a reef aquarium from a invert/fish only in a few months.

What is the maintenance like? How much time daily/weekly does one spend maintaining the water? What does one spend in a month on supplies such as vitamins/minerals? Does one need more than an Eclipse 300 filter?
 
Do you have live rock? Anything else for water movement? What's your lighting like?

The maintenance for a reef isn't much more than for a FO. There are a few supplements that people use--calcium being the biggie. Feeding filter feeders requires daily or every other day dosing with appropriate foods, but that's about it. The lighting is a big deal for most corals, though. They contain photosynthetic critters in their cells, and without these, they can die. Like keeping aquatic plants, this means paying attention to not just the amount of light provided, but also the quality and color of that light. 3 watts per gallon of PC, HO, VHO lighting will be enough for some things, like some polyps and mushrooms. More--up to 10+ WPG-- is used, depending on the tank depth, the corals you want to keep, etc.

Live rock and sand is usually the recommended filtration--you get critters to keep it clean, it hosts bacteria that deal with nitrogen wastes. The nitrate reducing ability of 3-4 inches of sand really helps out. Most people run a protien skimmer-this helps remove nitrogen wastes as well as pulling out toxins from certain corals.

For costs--probably about the same, depending on what's in your FO. Feeding a lion and a trigger costs about the same as providing for the corals--once you've paid for the equipment, of course! ;)
 
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Yeah the lights, I'll have to install a different light fixture apparently.

I have about 3 or 4 inches of sand. No LR. Plenty of dead rock and dead coral. I'll likely be starting with some red/green mushrooms, and then maybe some torch or bubble corals.
 
Shrooms are hardy, and a good choice. I'd pick up Eric Bornemans' copral book, and read up on behavior. Some corals are very aggressive, and will kill off others that are within reach--and lots have sweeper tentacles that are very long.

Oh, and I can't encourage anyone to get an anenome. They have a really poor survival rate in the home aquarium, even with well established tanks. Pretty sad, since they live for so long in the wild. A few species are hardy, but usually are not the desirable ones.
 
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