my first coral, what do i need to keep it?

[macs2015]

i've been doing FOWLR for a long time and lately i've been seeing so many corals that i'm starting to fall for them. so i decided to get 2 corals to see how it goes. i have anough lightning in my 40G. and all my fish are reef and invert safe.
i was planning on getting two small heads of ricordeas since i've heard they're hardy, grow fast and easy to care for. but i have a few things to clear before i can get them.
1. is calcium and buffer all i need to get to maintain them?
2. if nitrates go up how can i lower them quickly and safely for the corals?
3. how do i know if the coral is healthy and strong from the lfs?
4. how often should i add the Ca and the buffer?
5. any other precautions will be appreciated
thank you guys.

 

[alexmir]

If you buy a salt that is designed for reef tanks, you will not need to dose calcium. especially with just a few ricordeas, i do not think that the ricordeas will use much calcium.
And you add the buffer and calcium whenever your levels begin to lower, you can just get a test kit for alkilinity and calcium
A healthy ricordea should be open, and have no damage to it. Other than that, it will recover quickly.
Your nitrates shouldnt shoot up fast if you have a stable system, but water changes done on a schedule, and water around for an emergency one should help.
What lighting do you have? ricordea and mushrooms are good corals to try out your system. mushrooms would probably be better than ricordeas, because they are cheaper, and a little more bullet proof.( i had a stray mushroom i didnt want, so i stabbed it repeatedly with a stick

for two days because i didnt want it to spread. A week later it came back HUGE)

 

[cowfishrule]

your water changes will supply all the trace elements you need for basic corals.

 

[nemo_66]

everything has basically been covered by alexmir.
and about nitrates, i have 5-10ppm and am keeping quite a lot of coral.(**mushrooms alone i have green, red, green striped, purple, green ric.) i think mushrooms should be fine around that range or nitrate.

 

[macs2015]

thanks a lot for the help guys.
i have a t5 housing with an actinic light bulb. i think they're 10.000K, when i bought them the lfs said they'd be more than enough for my 40G.
btw i purchased 4 small heads of ricordeas yesterday. they're still very tiny, but hopefully they'll do well. i also bought an API calcium tester and so far everything's going well. i'll try to post a pic later on
thanks again.