Okay, I'm a bit new to coral keeping, and although I am doing very nicely with two tanks full of hardy softies (zooanthids, mushrooms, giant polyps, etc.) I keep Hearing about hard corals, stony corals, etc., and I'm interested. I am setting up a new 20 gal. sw aquarium with a good power filter, an air-driven undergravel filter, a protein skimmer, and LR. I an going to have a 96 watt flourecsent fixture, giving the yank app. 5 watts per gallon. Would I be able to keep any hard corals in there? Could I keep softies with them? what kinds of foods/supplements do they need? Is my filtration adequate? help!
can I have any hard corals?
- Thread starter waterguy1
- Start date
"HO" means high output... you dont want a undergravel filter or even a power filter in sw! general rule of thumb for sps is lots of flow and not alot of nitrates/phosphates.... as far as lighting it really depends on what you have there try and get more info on the light to answer your question
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The filtration in your tank is going to be taken care of with live rock and your protein skimmer. You don't really want to put any mechanical filtration in your tank. Just put about 20 lbs of aragonite substrate, 20 to 25 lbs of live rock, a good powerhead like a Koralia #2 and your protein skimmer. That is all you need. 96 watts of light is pretty low for stony corals.
you cant really go by watts per gallon... a 20g isnt all that deep so a 4 bulb fixture should work if anything atleast with a few hard corals up towards the top as long as all other conditions are right...calcium 420, alk 11, ph 8.3, nitrate 0, phosphate 0 and your good to go! if your thinking its a good idea with the UGF than id say you have a LONG way to go before your ready for sps
Personally if I were thinking of dedicating a 20g for sps only I would seriously consider bare bottom with a huge amount of flow making sure not to create a toilet bowl effect. Something like a couple of vortech M10s would be great. The reason for no substrate is that with that size tank and the amount of flow necessary would possibly create sandstorms......hence bare bottom, it also would enable the powerheads to keep any detritus in suspension to be removed by the protein skimmer. The skimmer would need to be a very good one to ensure excellent nutrient remova.. Also a hob phosphate reactor would be beneficial also.......