Coral placement question

Hi,

I finally have my water looking good and everything is bumping along smoothly. My calcium levels look great and the two corals that I've put in look really healthy so far (mushrooms and a toadstool).

My question is where should I place new corals in the tank. It's a 55 gallon long tank and the live rock is stacked in the middle, so it's difficult to stack more things on top. There are some nooks and crannies that I can fit smaller frags in but other than that, should I just lay corals on the sand-bed (if they're sold to me attached to a piece of live rock). I'll attach a picture to give you an idea of what the live rock configuration looks like. Also, is there a good reef-keeping book that tells you what corals like to be near the top of the tank and which ones like to be further from the light?

Thanks!

 

for sure some can go ont he sand bed, acans, brains, and those with a piece of rock wil lwork well. also some frags you can super gel glue them to your scape so they stay in place.

 

trial and error my friend. it drives me crazy. i've got a 55 too. i've had to rearrange corals many a time. but i feel like i'm finally starting to get the hang of my tank. cause you see, everyone's is different. your particular lights, water flow, other inhabitants, rock layout, all play a roll in it.

As a start - b4 you buy a particular coral, look it up specifically and see if it wants high, medium or low light. to me, that translates like this (for a T5 set up). mediumhighish, low, in shade. but everything I get, it seems like, wants a lot less light than i had already "learned".

you'll just have to figure out your own tank over time

then, you have to factor in how much flow is in a particular spot... so right when you thought you had it figured out... it drives me bonkers.

 

Excellent post! I totally agree. It drives Jwin crazy - I super glue a frag to a rock, leave it for a while, don't like it there, snap it off, move it somewhere else, repeat the process....

Definitely read up on your coral before placing. Some have to be started low in the tank and gradually moved up to acclimate to light.

 

As stated by Peredhil and Triplemom above

there are general principles which can help you decide where a coral should be located in terms of lighting and flow

my experience is that many times your 1st instincts are good, provided you have researched the coral in question

on other occasions though moving a coral 2 or 3 times until you "feel" that its happier where it is than where it was , is required

the longer you keep coral, the more different corals you keep, the higher the right 1st time ratio gets IMO

Steve

 

what i was told was start high if they start to look goofy and you will know start to lower them. Like everyone else said, each tank is diff. I stick my high demand corals mid tank and work down, almost everythign is near or on the bottom, flow also plays a big key, but good luck with this trial and error but hey thats reefing!

 

Buy frags, be patient and watch them grow. Then you can glue 'em wherever you want as soon as you figure out where they are happiest.

 

ya thats what i did, got all my frags on pieces of rock and they slowly takign over my tank. Seriously word of advice dont get xenia they grow like weeds same with kenya trees unless you get a white kenya tree cuz if conditions are right they break and grown everywhere. I love my xenia and keya but taken them out soon. If you tank is stable get a chalice,nice colored polyps, fuzzy carpet mushrooms are really nice looking in your tank. just plan it out and youll be happy, but take caution on xenia cuz noobs liek us liek them and before you know it ur like why the heck did i get these there taken over.

 

Great question! ( Great answers too ) Glad you asked it, now I won't have to

 

The only coral I have seen that doesn't care about location is the Kenya Tree. I have a bunch of branches that have dropped off and just start growing. Everything else is a crap-shoot.