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Cycling Coral First

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dangalang

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Has anyone tried this Reef Builders method of starting a new tank with corals right away?

It sounds like you would setup a tank with rock and substrate then ICP test to ensure no phosphates. Then as long as your temperature and salinity are good, you can start adding corals.

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How to Cycle a Reef Aquarium Right Away - With Corals First | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Forever and a day we have been schooled in how to set up and cycle an aquarium. Set it up, wet it, add bacteria, test, add fish, test again, and then eventually add corals. But here at Reef Builders…
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From personal experience, using turbo start for my tank, Fish went in on the first day and corals went in 3 weeks later. Those same fish and corals are still alive and thriving today. It also helps if you can start with seeded media from a healthy tank that you'd like to emulate. If you're using quality water with regular water changes you'll avoid most issues. I personally do not think that there is any issue with putting SOME corals in from the start. I would not throw a nice Acro/Goni/etc into a brand new tank.
 
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

If I had Jake's (RIP) skills and flats and flats of corals waiting to be put in displays, I would give it a shot. I do not. If I were newish to the hobby and had to purchase the corals on day one to make this happen, I probably would not.

dangalang said:
then ICP test to ensure no phosphates
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Look into over the counter phosphate test kits. BAR members may have some good suggestions on which they like. Sending in ICP might be overkill for monitoring phosphates, in my opinion.
 
it can be done.. I’ve done it. But, once the ugly stage kicks in and you’ve got your prized corals in there.. it gets very nerve racking. If you can make it past that point, it’s all good after that.
 
Did this with my current build, although the dry rock I used were cooking for 2 months along with my 2 year old live rocks from previous tank. New tank cycled instantly and I added Softies on Day1.

What corals do is basically bring additional biome and bacteria that are essential.

Tank is now touching 8 months, avoided the ugly stage completely. :)
 
Newjack said:
it can be done.. I’ve done it. But, once the ugly stage kicks in and you’ve got your prized corals in there.. it gets very nerve racking. If you can make it past that point, it’s all good after that.
Click to expand...
Use inexpensive test corals. :) It's a healthy way to start a tank before fish, but it can have some risks. Although it only takes a few corals to accomplish the goal of adding additional healthy bacteria. I'll be adding a couple of inexpensive corals to mine next week and then fish a few weeks after.
 
I think adding early some easy corals that won't spread everywhere, eg GSP and mushroom islands, is a great approach. IME doing more than that is asking for a ton of stress.

Everyone can say they don't care if the $10 sps/lps they got dies, it's just a tester, but in actuality as soon as uglies or issues start people freak out that it's dying and start doing a ton of crazy stuff to try and resolve it. So it being cheap AND hardy is important IMO.

Unless you've got the tank all setup and are experienced and doing a transfer. That's a different story and being super aggressive seems reasonable.
 
I think this way of starting tanks makes a lot of sense - why wait? I added corals and fish to my recent reboot the first day, skipped the uglies, and haven't really lost anything. I think using live rock helps a lot. And/or large colonies of corals that basically perform the same purpose (Jake Adams).
 
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