Reef Community

All about how to set up your first salt water aquarium corals and anemones how to choose appropriate species how to safely add them to your tank and how to feed them coming up now what is coral a coral is actually a colony of saltwater invertebrates animals not plants with genetically identical polyps they form the structure of all coral reefs worldwide most have photosynthetic those in theli living symbiotically within their fleshy tissue which provide the majority of the food to the coral via the sun's rays but corals also use their polyps to capture food and bring it to their mouths for feeding while closely related to anemones unlike their anemone Brethren corals are fixed to one place hobbyists separate coral into five categories SPS or small pop Stony LPS or large pop Stony soft corals non-photosynthetic corals and gorgonians while these aren't scientific categories we've found them useful as hobbyists LPS corals have large fleshy polyps and SPS corals have small polyps both secrete calcium carbonate skeletons while soft corals have these hard needle like spicules embedded in their fleshy tissue which give the corals some rigidity for us beginners we are primarily interested in large pop Stony and soft corals for our 15-gallon tank especially starting out as beginners I would recommend choosing either corals or anemones but not both together anemones use their foot to move around the tank and there stinging tentacles could injure corals I'll be adding nems short for anemones to my tank but let's do a quick overview of some Coral options if you decide to go that route every species of coral has distinct lighting needs some are found near the surface of the water and get full Tropical Sun all day long While others are deeper down maybe thriving in the shadow of larger Coral colonies the AI blade light that comes with the hell Reef kit that we're using is a powerful light and great for both soft and LPS corals there are a variety of soft and LPS corals that would work well and I'll put a link to a couple good websites below that talk all about some great options if you stick with more beginner friendly corals they are typically more Hardy and more forgiving of those evitable beginner mistakes just choose a few smaller corals to start out but before adding them to your tank there's a few acclamation steps when you bring your corals home start by rinsing the bags in tap water moving your lights to the back and turning them off and floating the bags in the tank for 30 minutes to equalize the water temperature between the two after 30 minutes pour the water from the bag into a bowl and place the Coral in that water now we're going to perform something called a coral dip to help remove some pests that may be hitchhiking on those corals grab two more bowls and fill both with freshly made sea water that's heated to match the tank water temperature in the first Bowl use a product such as Coral RX mix it in and start adding your corals one at a time give them a vigorous shake and place them in the bowl once they're all in use a turkey baster to blast the coral this will help dislodge various pests after 4 to 5 minutes have passed give each coral one more Shake then move them to the last bowl with fresh sea water now just take a Peak at the bottom of the dipping Bowl you may be shocked with how many pests were removed it's definitely helpful but you'll never be able to get them all mounting and placement your corals are going to need a couple of really important things the right amount of flow and the right amount of light too much light too early can be absolutely catastrophic for corals leading to Coral bleaching and maybe even death but the good news is corals can acclimate to our lights over a period of time and be just fine if you have the AI blade light there is actually an acclamation mode built in just turn it on and your lights will drop to 50% intensity and slowly raiseed to 100% over the next 4 weeks the easiest way to mount Coral to your rock work will depend on the type of coral for example mounting a soft Coral use a really loose fitting rubber band and the goal is that over the course of a couple weeks that soft Coral will attach itself to the rockwork for large pop Stony LPS corals we need to attach the Stony base to the rockwork the easiest way to do this is with with a mix of coral gum and extra thick superglue you're going to roll a small amount of the tins of coral gum together into a small ball then place a large dab of the extra thick Super Glue on one side and insert the coral then place a large dab of Super Glue on the other end and place the coral into the tank and press it into the Rock simply hold the coral against The Rock for 10 seconds and you're done try your best to place your Corals in locations spread out from each other and where they will get plenty of light and flow typically soft corals need less light so a lower down and closer to the edges works great and LPS like more light so just take that into consideration while your corals will get most of their nutrition from the light they will still require a supplemental feeding at least once a week to do this you'll need a few things Coral Food Coral aminos and a syringe or a coral Target feeder my two favorite Coral foods are either BRS Reef chili or bipat bener reef and I also use Brightwell Aquatics Coral Amino following the dosing amount on the label mix the coral food and coral aminos into a small container turn off the return pump and wav maker then use the syringe to feed your corals by directly placing the food over the mouth of the coral in the hobby we call this target feed eting and just continue repeating this process until you fed all your corals and if you have a little leftover food just dump it into the tank give the corals 10 to 15 minutes to eat then turn the wav maker and the return pump back on feature corals like this once a week and personally I would perform your water change immediately after that will mean you can replace your filter sock and suck out a lot of water and leftover food before it has a chance to break down and raise the nut nutrient levels in your tank after that brief Coral introduction it's time for anemones anemones are animals with a foot for walking a mouth for eating and stinging tentacles to catch their prey their soft tissue contains symbiotic zoen thi which converts the sun's energy into sugars that feed the host anemone anemones are definitely carnivores and certain species can actually catch and consume whole fish because they have a foot they're able to walk around until they find a home they're happy with there are a whole bunch of species of anemones but for our tank we're only interested in bubble tip anemones they are easier to care for than others not super aggressive the right size for our tanks and will host clown fish which are the fish I already added to my system for our tank choosing the right anemon only involves a few factors first be sure it's a bubble tip they come in very Shades of Greens oranges and reds with some color varieties catching absolutely ridiculous sums of money personally I really like the inexpensive yet gorgeous standard colored Rose bubble tip anemone to choose a healthy anemone make sure its mouth is closed tightly its tentacles are colorful and its foot doesn't have any obvious signs of damage such as tearing or ripping and don't buy tiny anemones get the largest one you can afford because I have found that large anemones acclimate much much much easier than small anemones you only need to pick up two or three anemones because if they're happy and healthy in a short amount of time they will multiply and fill up your tank nicely if you've already watched episode three in this series you already learned how to acclimate fish and the process is virtually the same starting with temperature acclimation move your lights to the back turn them down or even better yet turn them off give the bag a quick rinse with tap water and Float the bag in your aquarium for 30 minutes be sure to turn on acclamation mode on your lights because just like corals too much light Too Soon is bad for anemones now it's time to transfer your anemones to their new home turn off your return pump and wav maker either use a clean bare hand or use a night trial glove and pick up the nems like to sink their foot into crevices so place your nem somewhere it can sink its foot into leave the flow off for 10 to 15 minutes to give the anemone time to firmly attach its foot to the rockwork then turn your return pump and wave maker back on if for some reason the anemone didn't attach just turn the wav maker and return pump back off and give it another 10 to 15 minutes since your anemone has a foot it will move around and that's totally normal just be sure to keep it away from the wave maker and the Overflow into the rear filtration chamber if it gets too close and it's on the glass work use something like a credit card to gently loosen its foot and move it somewhere that's further away from those dangers how to feed your anemone there are a few things your anemone can eat but personally I like to feed frozen mice's shrimp because not only do my anemones love it but I can also feed it to my fish and other cleanup crew members Hikari misis works really well for feeding anemones but PE misis works even better because they are larger m shrimp that are gut loed so even more nutritious simply thaw some frozen msis in a container with tank water turn off the return pump and wav maker and use a syringe to place the msis shrimp directly into the Anemones tentacles repeat this process for all of your anemones and leave the flow off for 10 to 15 minutes to allow the nems to eat feed your nemes once a week to keep them happy.