corals?

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Hi everyone,

I was wondering about possibly adding some soft corals to my existing SW tank. It's almost 8 months old, all water values are in suggested ranges ...
pH = 8.2 / Sp. Grav. = 1.024 / temp. = 82 / ammonia = .25 / nitrites = 0 / nitrates = ~10-20 (I do weekly to bi-weekly water changes ranging from 10% - 25%)

I don't want any corals that will take a lot of effort and additives to maintain and I don't want to sink a ton of money into lighting, so I'd like to add some easy corals that require little light. To elaborate on my current lights I use to have just the flourescent (sp) bulb that came with the hood but I was talking to the LFS guy and he said I could upgrade my light to a 10,000k bulb and probably keep some polyp type corals and maybe some mushrooms. What about bubble corals? Also I was wondering if there were any fancier corals (the kind that kind of look like anemones) that don't need high lighting?

One other quick question ...
I have seen these things that look like thin mushrooms and they grow on pieces of rock ... (I think they are called mushroom anemones) do these take a lot of experience and extra care to keep?

Thanks for any advice you can give. I have pretty good faith in my LFS guy but want to really find out about these things before I go spending a couple hundred dollars on corals only to have them die because I was given bad info.
 

Guy W

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Apr 8, 2002
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mushrooms are easy to keep. bubble corals require some extra lighting, as do most LPS corals. Mushrooms, button polyps, sand polyps, feather dusters (not really a coral), and things of that nature do well under low to moderate light.

what kind of lighting and wattage do you have now? regular florescent, power compact, VHO, MH? edit: doh i see you have regular florescent bulbs. upgrading to a regular florescent bulb that is 10k isn't going to make that much of a difference. your current bulb is most likely 8800k.

also, .25 ammonia isn't suggested. you should look into the cause or try another test kit.
 

TheTim

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Jun 25, 2003
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I had mushrooms under hardly any lighting, and they thrive... We even did ricordia under not so well lighting. The other thing I'd say you could get would be sun polyps, they dont require the light, but require target feeding, its really not that bad, and they look awesome.

Tim
 

mogurnda

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Apr 29, 2003
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Using the Aquarium Pharmaceticals test kit, I would get a reading that looked like 0.25 when it was really 0, as have others. You might try freshly mixed salt water, which should be 0, and see if you're just getting bad readings.
 
I have been getting the .25 ammonia readings since the beginning of set up. I have just bought a new test kit and will test the water with it later today and see if the results are the same. I always thought it was odd that I constantly got the same ammonia reading over and over.
 
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