Hard Corals

How much more difficult is it to take care of hard corals? I have tons of soft corals in my Biocube right now, but hard corals just look awesome. How is the feeding different, what do you feed? What type of water flow is required? Are their any other differences that I should know about?

 

How much more difficult is it to take care of hard corals? I have tons of soft corals in my Biocube right now, but hard corals just look awesome. How is the feeding different, what do you feed? What type of water flow is required? Are there any other differences that I should know about?

 

Prehaps try some large polyp stoney corals such as acans or euphyllias like frogspawn, torch, hammer.

Target feed meaty seafood like mysis or cyclops every 4 - 7 days but not much more based on the size of your tank.

They will do fine at the lower level of the tank and do not requires a lot of flow.

Routine water changes should be suffiecent to replace the the trace elements.

Hope that helps a little.

 

This should probably go in the corals forum and is also double posted.

I agree with Corailline, start with some LPS first. Based on what I can see of your tank,you'd need better lighting and hard corals would probably have to go higher up so you'd have to re-arrange or add to your rock work. Parameters would have to correct,steady and maintained. If you have leathers some SPS can be affected by their toxins so you'd have to run carbon if you don't already.

Search the forums. I'm sure you'll find answers to a lot of your questions concerning hard coral keeping.

 

Thanks. Have you had experience with open brains? Are they an easy hard coral to take care of?

 

Thanks. I'm probably going to Get a biocube HQI for Xmas. But why not start learning now? I could keep the leathers and such in the biocube I have now.

 

LPS need about the same flow as softies. SPS need 30+ times the DT volume for flow. LPS you can feed the same frozen food as the fish. SPS you feed them with light, fish waste and phytoplankton. LPS you need to dose periodically Ca, Mg and alkalinity. SPS you need to dose daily. For SPS your parameters need to be steady besides being within the correct range.

 

LPS are okay in a biocube...SPS(small polyp stony) are probably a little to much light demanding unless you modified the lighting.

But LPS would be fine, i have alot in my 14g biocube. Frogspawns,Duncans,Acans...All of those are easy to take care of. They or not very light demanding, i would say medium to high, and some even low to medium(brains). Feeding is up to you really, it could add alot of nitrates to your system if you do it frequently, but i feed once a week to twice a week in my tank, and they will grow alot faster from target feeding, and better color also. I would get a skimmer to help take out the extra nutrients in the water after target feeding.

 

Thanks for the help. I might be getting an HQI very soon, so I was wondering.

 

If your getting HQI, the LPS can stay on the bottom of the tank...