Growing Coral - Whats Required?

phxjosh

phxjosh

Member
Say I wanted a tank 100% for growing coral only, no fish, nothing but coral, what all would be required? I have a 55g tank set aside for growing coral, I am just not sure what to do exactly, do I need live rock and live sand? Do I need fish in there to help the coral grow?
I am a complete noobie to this, any help would be great.
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Just a couple more questions.
Is this to be a frag tank, a tank to culture coral for sale later?
Is this to be a display tank for show off the beauty of a coral reef?
As you may know different coral will require different things. Is this to be a nonphotosynthetic tank? A softie type tank? A large polyp stony coral tank? A small polyp stony coral tank?
The answers to those question will help to develop the needs of the equipment, lighting etc that would be required.
 
phxjosh

phxjosh

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by spanko http:///forum/thread/382713/growing-coral-whats-required#post_3341955
Just a couple more questions.
Is this to be a frag tank, a tank to culture coral for sale later?
Is this to be a display tank for show off the beauty of a coral reef?
As you may know different coral will require different things. Is this to be a nonphotosynthetic tank? A softie type tank? A large polyp stony coral tank? A small polyp stony coral tank?
The answers to those question will help to develop the needs of the equipment, lighting etc that would be required.
Thank you for your reply.
The tank is going to be to culture coral for sale in the future, and to use in my other tanks.
The tank is not a display tank, it's purely for culturing coral.
I plan on growing mostly stony polyps, I want to have consistent lighting that will work for more than just 1 type or coral, is that possible?
Thank you so much for your reply.
 
gemmy

gemmy

Active Member
So you want an SPS coral culturing tank? I would go with a good metal halide system with t5's. I would not necessarily say that you would have to have live sand and live rock. I think having the live rock and sand in a refugium for the tank would be beneficial. You could do a foam rock wall for the back with spots drilled for frags and it can have shelves for frags. You could build structures from pvc, egg crate, and rock to create shelves and this will create areas with different lighting to have several types of corals with varying lighting needs.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
If it's a standard 55, I'd do a MH setup and make tiers out of egg crate, this will block some light for lower light demanding corals, as you'll see many frag tanks set up.
 
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