Why no coral?

lwooters

lwooters

AC Members
Jan 5, 2007
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Maryland, USA
So I bought a used saltwater setup about a month ago, already cycled, fish already living in it. It's a 55 gallon with MH lighting and probably around 50 pounds of live rock. The substrate is live sand. I have one tiny mushroom, that's it! I've been adding the vitamins and stuff daily that is supposed to promote coral growth, but still nothing. Do I need to add some more live rock to get my stuff going? When I peak in at night, there's lots of critters floating around and hanging out on the rock, so I know there's life out there, but I want some coral! Could all the hair algae from the previous owners lack of a clean up crew be part of the problem? Thanks for any input!
:hang:
 
i'm pretty sure you would need to add coral to the tank to have coral, unless your lr was fotunate enought o have some well-developed hitchhiking species...
 
Hate ta tell ya this, but you have to buy the coral.....theoretically, that mushroom will populate the whole tank...but I don't think you want to wait years...the critters you are seeing are mainly copepods...that's good...keep up with water changes to knock out the hair algae thats left, get some snails and hermit crabs for the clean up crew......start with more mushroom corals and leather corals, polyps....here are some general articles.....

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/saltwater/ziegler01.html

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/saltwater/Kim_SettingUp.html

A google search of reef tank set up will get you a bunch more...make sure the fish in the tank are reef compatible! Good luck and tell us how it goes!
 
Yes, I've only been buying reef compatable fish. I feel kinda dumb asking but this is my first taste of saltwater and I see all these beautiful tanks on here and I thought that the coral was like seeded in the live rock. That's basically what my LFS told me, guess I ought to know better then to listen to them.
 
Nothing to feel dumb about my friend...the dumbest questions are the ones that are never asked....enjoy your new tank!
 
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