making into coral tank

[AC2020x]

what all do I need to do to make the transition from a fowlr tank to a reef tank? I have some eagle eye polyps in my tank right now but thats it and they are doing fine. I have decent lights but definitely nothing good enough to get any corals that are in need of high intensity lighting. What else do I need to do? Do I need to add anything? I know I need to make sure my calcium levels are good. Anything else that needs to be in a good range?

Thanks alot for any help!

 

[jcolletteiii]

So this is your 29? What exactly do you have for lighting? How much flow? How manly lbs of LR do you have?

The short answer is not much. If you have a decent amount of LR, decent flow, and decent lighting, you should be OK to keep softies and probably most LPS. Also, what salt mix do you use?

I kept an open brain under pc lighting for 8 months before upgrading with good results, but I fed it every 3-5 days. Don't worry about Ca if you don't plan on keeping SPS, your weekly w/c's will replenish this and just about everything else you need. I suggest you think a bit about salt as well. I like Seachem reef salt becaiuse it has higher levels of both Ca and Mg, as well as having an awesome buffering capacity. I like this salt because I don't have to add Ca or Mg to keep levels up, and it also keeps my alkalinity up. Don't go crazy with dosing, either. Add as little as possible.

ONLY USE RODI WATER for your waterchanges. This will keep phosphate and other junk out of your water. Test your water parameters religiously ntil you know how your tank behaves. You should test for pH, kH, NO2, NO3, and NH at least. Test before w/c's and keep a log. If you start adding sps, you will also want to check Ca and Mg. Corals like stable parameters, and if you do your weekly w/c's on a regular schedule, you will not need to worry about skimming and will have happy corals.

 

[james123]

i'm no expert, but in my tank when i started adding corals i had to upgrade my light was about it. once i started adding softies first it wasn't any big deal. then i started adding LPS stuff and had to increase the frequency of water changes. i like to keep my nitrates under 10. i have about 5 pieces of lps stuff and as of yet they don't deplete the calcium enough for me to have to dose for it. That's just my tank, though. By the way i have a 260 watt compact flourescent on a 55 gallon and the LPS stuff i have does great. i wouldn't try to keep SPS stuff in my tank, however, even if i were to upgrade the light, for fear that i couldn't keep the nitrates down enough because i don't have any kind of sump/refugium system. I would have to do water changes every 3-4 days to keep nitrates under 5, which is where most SPS keepers like theirs. Anyway, GOOD LUCK!!!