Help me decide on Coral Selection
- Thread starter fishy408
- Start date
fishy408
Supporting Member
first time around i wanted all the high end sticks. This time I will be taking it more slowly and be more budget conscious. For automation and equipment I plan to keep things simple as possible.
things I will probably automate.
dosing (alk, calcium, mag) maybe iodine?
possibly a awc system.
things I will probably automate.
dosing (alk, calcium, mag) maybe iodine?
possibly a awc system.
H2OPlayar
Supporting Member
Agree, sps is a wide range of difficulty and price. I can give you some easier sps frags to start and you can see how they fare in your tank before you go spending money on pricey stuff. Also, I love trying different things out of the $10 bin.
Last edited:
newfly
Supporting Member
I’m spending less than that. Maybe 2 hours a week. The maintenance requirement depending on your setup, size of the tank, equipment etc. I probably should test more so, let round it up to 3 hours a week.
I have an AIO, RODI and drain connected to the tank. Mixing station is under the cabinet.
I have not tried acro but sps like monti, birdnest, stylo seems to be happy and growing.
Ibn
Guest
Your 4 hours a week comes out to be ~35 minutes/day. To be honest with you, that's a ton of time to devote to a tank. I spend ~10 minutes a week on maintenance of the tank. This includes manually using a flipper to clean the 3 sides of the tank, siphoning out ~2.5 gallons of water (~12.5% out of 20g aio tank; probably closer to 15% with offset from rocks, sand, etc.), emptying the skimmer cup, and then refilling the tank. When I had the 87G tank up and running, and doing everything manually, it came out to be ~20-30 minutes per week.
With a bigger tank it would take longer, but definitely within your allowable threshold. If you account in for automation with the AWC, then it's more than doable. I do not include feeding the fish (which you can also automate so you can discount this) and observing the tank and corals, since I do not count those as part of time spent on the tank. I count those towards the enjoyment factor of owning a tank instead.
In regards to what you're considering:
With 2 part dosing, there's really hardly any maintenance. The time spent is dependent on how much solution you want to mix and the amount of time you want to spend in between mixing. The amount of solution depends on the size of your dosing containers and how much your corals consume. This is relatively much easier nowadays with automated testing of alk via Trident and other automated alk testing tools. Same applies to even if you were to use a calcium reactor instead.
WC. The bulk of your time on a weekly basis. This takes into consideration the amount of time that you spend mixing the water and the actual time it takes you to do a water change. This is usually something that you do on a weekly basis, at most for the majority of folks. With AWC, you can get away with the occasional manual water change to suck out unwanted detritus/algae, etc. SW can be mixed and stored ahead of time.
With a bigger tank it would take longer, but definitely within your allowable threshold. If you account in for automation with the AWC, then it's more than doable. I do not include feeding the fish (which you can also automate so you can discount this) and observing the tank and corals, since I do not count those as part of time spent on the tank. I count those towards the enjoyment factor of owning a tank instead.
In regards to what you're considering:
With 2 part dosing, there's really hardly any maintenance. The time spent is dependent on how much solution you want to mix and the amount of time you want to spend in between mixing. The amount of solution depends on the size of your dosing containers and how much your corals consume. This is relatively much easier nowadays with automated testing of alk via Trident and other automated alk testing tools. Same applies to even if you were to use a calcium reactor instead.
WC. The bulk of your time on a weekly basis. This takes into consideration the amount of time that you spend mixing the water and the actual time it takes you to do a water change. This is usually something that you do on a weekly basis, at most for the majority of folks. With AWC, you can get away with the occasional manual water change to suck out unwanted detritus/algae, etc. SW can be mixed and stored ahead of time.
fishy408
Supporting Member
I tried to visit all my possible mistakes that I might have done in my last tank build, I had a lot of time to think about it. In the end, it came down to one thing which I think was stability of the system. I mean stability, not necessarily in parameters (alk, ca, mag, nitrate, and phosphate) but stability in thing that I do not measure or just don't know about. If I traced all my steps and looked at it through a magnifying glass, its easy to conclude how it messed up the stability in the tank and caused my sps to die off.
This time around, will take my time. Once everything is stable try not to mess with it too much. I do think that I should start off with LPS until the tank is stable and husbandry has been established and maintained for a period of time.
This time around, will take my time. Once everything is stable try not to mess with it too much. I do think that I should start off with LPS until the tank is stable and husbandry has been established and maintained for a period of time.
Afropenguin
Guest
Do an anemone tank =)
fishy408
Supporting Member
only if i can glue their feet to a rock.
ever since covid, i have been working almost every saturday and sometimes sundays. i mainly feed fish mysis pieces, auto feeder feeds mysis pellets twice, dose ab+ 15ml daily. every sunday i dose red sea abcd elements, change out filter floss, empty skimmer, clean glass, replace co2 media, dose mag, and refill ato when need. at most, less than a hour a week of husbandry. no wc since oct/nov 2020 since calcium reactor went online. i run a mid/high end sps dominate tank.
Last edited:
rygh
Guest
To me, that sounds like plenty of time being spent on the tank for any coral type, so not limiting you.
The next questions are:
1) Experience level.
Do you have a good feel on what is needed for various coral types.
2) Age of the tank.
How long has it been relatively stable.
3) Planned fish load, size, and type?
For example, if you like a lot of big polluting carnivores, that affects coral choice.
Some thoughts:
Doing all fancy pointy sticks is not so tough if that is the focus of the tank.
But that means restricted other coral types plus restricted fish types and everything else.
It is possible to do a fully mixed SPS+LPS+Softy+lots of fish, but REALLY hard.
Really think about the types of coral you personally like. Do not go by what is "prestigious."
The next questions are:
1) Experience level.
Do you have a good feel on what is needed for various coral types.
2) Age of the tank.
How long has it been relatively stable.
3) Planned fish load, size, and type?
For example, if you like a lot of big polluting carnivores, that affects coral choice.
Some thoughts:
Doing all fancy pointy sticks is not so tough if that is the focus of the tank.
But that means restricted other coral types plus restricted fish types and everything else.
It is possible to do a fully mixed SPS+LPS+Softy+lots of fish, but REALLY hard.
Really think about the types of coral you personally like. Do not go by what is "prestigious."