When it is time to add corals, what will I change

Wrench

Wrench

AC Members
Sep 9, 2004
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It's not time yet, but when my tank is ready for corals what will I need to start adding and supplementing to the tank? Iodine, stontium and molybenum I know. What should those levels be for healthy corals and what else should I be testing for? Also what is the feeding regimen? I've heard of so many different products while browsing the forums, which ones are necessary?

Initially I plan on keeping;

Mushrooms & Rics
Zoas
Favia
Candycane
Brain corals
Green star polyps
Frogspawn
Torch coral
and Pulsing xenia
 
There is no need to dose iodine, strontium, or other trace elements. Water changes will take care of things. Actually I do water changes to LOWER my trace elements as when I feed the tanks, I'm adding trace elements via the foods that get fed.
Depending on what corals you have you will most likely be adding calcium and alkalinity in one form or another. I use Kalkwasser but many use commercial 2 part mixes, and many more use Randy Holmes-Farleys DIY calcium alk mag suppliment.
Never add anything that you haven't tested for and found to be lacking.
There are all kinds of products sold that make money for the producer and store retailer but won't make a corresponding difference in your tanks.
With all the tanks I have, I haven't dosed trace or iodine in 13 yrs and my tanks do just fine.
When it comes to chemical information, you can't beat the info in the links on the Chemical post sticky of Randy Holmes-Farley's forum. Not only links to his own information but to others, like Craig Bingman as well.
 
Calcium, alkalinity, pH, nitrate, phosphate, salinity / specific gravity (ocassionally) and magnesium (even less often) are a good battery of parameters to monitor on top of temp.

Iodine, stront., and molybd. are easily kept in-line, along with other trace elements, via your regular water changes with any good quality salt mix.

Outside of my regular water changes, I find myself only dosing calcium and alkalinity buffer. I use to dose iodine regularly, but recently decided to stop and see if there is a noticable difference in our corals (softies and some LPS). While I only stopped a few weeks ago, I haven't seen slowed growth or reduced extension to this point.

The corals you've listed do not require strict, regular feeding, although some can benefit from it. I've noticed more rapid growth and reprodution of our zoas as a result of the ocassional target feeding.
 
Thank you :) My questions have been answered.
 
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