live rock with small mushroom coral attached

I bought a piece of live rock yesterday with a small mushroom coral attached to it. It is about 1/2" in diameter. I got it from the lfs who takes my livebearers when they are old enough to sell, so I trust the source, and I assume that it's healthy at this point. I wasn't planning on adding coral to my tank yet, so I'm not sure where to go from here.

Tank is 10g, currently has an Aqueon hob filter, more for water movement than anything at this point; 16# Nature's Ocean Bio-Active Reef Substrate mixed with some regular sand; 6-7# of dry live rock which has been in the tank for less than a week. Lights are currently 2 - 15w 6700 CFL bulbs. It's been running for several weeks now, cycling, and the last time I tested the parameters, a few days ago, ammonia was 0, nitrite was coming down but still pretty high, and nitrate was going up. I don't remember the exact numbers, and my journal isn't available at the moment. I'll test again later today and update, but unless things are significantly different today, it's not done cycling yet.

Meanwhile, I have this coral attached to a piece of live rock. I left it overnight in it's bag and water from the lfs, hanging in the tank so it gets light and warmth. It's not much water, though. I've got another piece of live rock from the same store in a bucket of saltwater with a heater and water movement. I hadn't put it in the tank yet because I need to break it up first. I could put the new piece in the bucket, but I don't know if the parameters on that water are any better or how they might change before the tank cycle is complete. Although I guess that's really not a problem, because I could do water changes to keep the parameters OK, since I'm not trying to cycle the bucket.

Also - specific question re lighting: I will be building a hood that will hold 4 cfls and probably end up with 2 10w 10000K bulbs and 2 10w 50/50 bulbs, for a total of 4w/g, but for the moment what I can do is leave the current bulbs on the tank, which is 3w/g, 6700K; or switch both bulbs for a total of 2w/g, 10,000K; or use one of each, for 15w at 6700 and 10w at 10000. Thoughts? If I put the new piece of lr in the bucket with the other piece, should I move the light to the bucket for the coral?

Any suggestions or advice you have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

OK, here are the stats:

Ammonia: less than .25, I'm thinking 0 because it has been the same color over the last several tests, and I keep hearing that API isn't that reliable
Nitrite: also less than .25, down from 4 or so a couple of days ago
Nitrate: around 80
pH: 8.2
KH: 8
SG: 1.018
temp 81

By the way, stats for the bucket are very similar - nitrite is 0, pH is 8.3-8.4, KH is 10, SG is 1.021, and the rest are the same.

 

You need to increase your SG; at least 1.022 for FO, 1.024 for corals and inverts. Personally, I prefer to keep mine around 1.026, same as NSW. I've found no reliable data proving that a lower SG is beneficial for anything that comes from the ocean.

As for the mushroom, they're extremely hardy and have been known to survive a cycle.

 

I would just put the rock into your tank. Mushrooms are pretty hardy. In terms of lighting, I'll let others chime in on whether what you have is sufficient for what you want to do. It seems to be that your lighting could definitely sustain most softies and hardy corals. I'm not sure about SPS.

Follow Mr. Bill's advice above.

 

Thank you for the input. I'll put the rock in and we'll see what happens. I also discovered a bristle worm when I was watching the rock last night. I'm excited to see what else I may have brought home with me - hopefully nothing bad.

BTW, my SG is low because when I bought the bigger piece of LR and some brine shrimp earlier in the week the SG of the water they were in was really low - 1.014 - so I lowered mine so I wouldn't shock anything with a sudden jump in SG. The increase since then is just from evaporation. I usually keep it 1.023 - 1.026, and am heading in that direction again.

 

seeing life on live rock is such a cool part of this hobby although you can get bad stuff as well. Bristleworms are a good thing from what most people say. They creep me out.

 

Especially when they grow to stupid lengths. Found one come out of a rock in my 20 long about 3 months ago a and I kid you not it stretched to almost half of the tank.

 

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