New to Saltwater, need help!

[dannywwhite]

Hi there! So basically I will just tell you the background of what i have. I have 2 freshwater tanks, one 38 and one 10 and recently I started my saltwater. After letting it sit for a long amount of time with live rocks, sand, and such, I added biospire and went away for a week on vacation. When I got home I checked the levels, which all turned up absolutely spotless, so I added fish. They are doing great (this is day 2 of having the fish), and everything seems to be going well. My question is, when can I introduce coral? I realize after my ammonia is broken down and there are no traces of nitrite and nitrate, which will obviously take some time. But I want to know if I can just immediately add coral after the cycle is back to normal, or wait longer? I'm not exactly sure. I have at the moment 1 LED light, and today I am picking up more LED's for the coral later on. The 1 was just to have for right now, to adjust the fish to night and day I guess. I would LOVE advice from people, please help as I am only a major rookie with saltwater!!
Thank you!!

 

[jay0705]

Ok let's see. How big is your sw tank? Once your tank settles in again you should be fine to add coral slowly. As far as lighting idk if led is enough. I believe there are special lighting just for coral. Iam sure somebody w more knowledge will chime in

 

[dannywwhite]

It is a 40 gallon breeder. Do u really think LED isnt enough? Do you personally have corals, if so what's your experience?

 

[sweatervest13]

Quote:
Originally Posted by dannywwhite http:///t/395985/new-to-saltwater-need-help#post_3527124
Hi there! So basically I will just tell you the background of what i have. I have 2 freshwater tanks, one 38 and one 10 and recently I started my saltwater. After letting it sit for a long amount of time with live rocks, sand, and such, I added biospire and went away for a week on vacation. When I got home I checked the levels, which all turned up absolutely spotless, so I added fish. They are doing great (this is day 2 of having the fish), and everything seems to be going well. My question is, when can I introduce coral? I realize after my ammonia is broken down and there are no traces of nitrite and nitrate, which will obviously take some time. But I want to know if I can just immediately add coral after the cycle is back to normal, or wait longer? I'm not exactly sure. I have at the moment 1 LED light, and today I am picking up more LED's for the coral later on. The 1 was just to have for right now, to adjust the fish to night and day I guess. I would LOVE advice from people, please help as I am only a major rookie with saltwater!!
Thank you!!
Hi there and Welcome!!!
Congrats on your first SW tank!!
Coral really don't have that heavy of an impact on the bio-load of the tank (as long as you are not feeding them). So they can be added after the initial cycle. But... It is recommended that you have some stable parameters for the basic's: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph. As long as you make sure the initial cycle is complete and holding you can add corals.
Now your light... What brand is it and what are the specs??? There are a lot of different LED units on the market and some are wonderful and some are not that good at growing coral (more specifically, some are fish only lights and cannot support coral growth). The 3 watt diodes fixtures are the ones that can really grown coral, and some of the 1 watt diode fixtures can grow some coral (mushrooms, zoa's, polyps, and other low light corals), but fall short on meeting the needs of light hungry corals and anemones (SPS, and anemones).
I have even seen some micro LED's that are like .25 watts per diode that barley even light the tank for viewing.
We need to see what light fixture you have (and what you are planning on getting new) to see if it can support growing corals.
Hope that helps!!

 

[2quills]

There are a plethora of led light fixtures out there that are perfectly capable of satisfying the most demanding corals. But not all of them.
What type/brand are you getting and what type of coral are you looking to keep.
Good thing about a 40g breeder is they are not terribly tall tanks so you wouldn't necessarily need the most expensive high powered lights available.

 

[jay0705]

excellent thanks for covering my lack of coral knowledge guys lol I didn't want to steer the guy wrong. My self iam a fish guy. W minor coral knowledge that's why I didn't want to go into to much about the lighting

 

[dannywwhite]

Thank you for your help and advice!
I have 2 Fluval Sea LED lights. The specs on the box says it has 312 LEDs and each are 25W. and it also says 25000k (idk what that means).

 

[sweatervest13]

Quote:
Originally Posted by dannywwhite http:///t/395985/new-to-saltwater-need-help#post_3527146
Thank you for your help and advice!
I have 2 Fluval Sea LED lights. The specs on the box says it has 312 LEDs and each are 25W. and it also says 25000k (idk what that means).
I sent you a PM with a link to a product review on these lights.
The unit has .25 watt (that's 1/4 watt) diodes. That is super low powered, but it tries to make up for the low power by sheer number of LED diodes (312 each in your fixture). This can/might work growing low light corals. But it will fall short on light hungry corals (SPS).
IMHO there are better LED fixtures out there for the money. But, if this is what you got, then it could work growing mushrooms, Z's & P's, and other low light corals.
It seems that they are a bit controllable to where you can choose what channel goes on. This can be used to "dial in" the light to give you a different color look to your tank (which is pretty cool!!). The cool thing is that they don't use a lot of power, so that should make them cheaper to run long term. If you just wanted some soft coral in the tank, then these LED's could get you by for a bit.