Coral placement and suggestions

[valley]

Hello, I have had this tank set up since October and I’m looking to fill it up with coral. I have ideal and stable parameters and I have been successfully keeping LPS coral and softies. So far I have: zoas, paly, Rhodactis , Ricordea Florida, toadstool, blastos, candy canes, a scoly, and a micromussa. I have attached a photo of my aquascape; this is a picture from last month and not how my tank looks currently but I do still have that big algae problem. I’m looking for any suggestions on what I can place on that purple rock and that white rock on top. For the purple rock I really want to put a torch there but I’m not sure if that will sting the coral nearby (4 zoa frags on the rock below and some candy cane and blastos nearby). For the meantime I’m not sure what to place on the top rock because of all the algae. It clearly gets a lot of light so maybe sps? I do like anemones but I’m just afraid of one killing my coral especially because of the scape I have. For reference this is a Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon.

 

[KrisReef]

Have you ever read folks encouraging other reefers to "Go slowly?"

I try not to tell folks that because I am a coral junky and when I see a coral that I need to buy I don't wait, I just get it and hope that it will adapt to the jungle of coral that are already in the tank.

Right now your tank seems to want to grow hair algae. If you can, let the tank ride out the need to mature and grow the green algae for awhile, and sooner or later the algae will pass. Once that happens, the tank is going to be a lot better place for corals to thrive in, ime. If you rush adding stuff you will have to work hard to keep after that algae to prevent it from growing over the corals and possibly killing them.

Once the coralline gets rolling and the hair is fading like an old man, then the coral can be added to grow and thrive where the hair is now present. Go slow.

You can pull the hair, scrub it, attack it with an @brandon429 "Rip-Clean" effort, add CUC, and what not to speed up the process but until that stage is passed the less you add the less you will have to work to keep things alive until it does stop growing the weeds. It's a natural succession and part of the process of ecosystem maturation, as far as I can tell.

Gl.

 

[valley]

Have you ever read folks encouraging other reefers to "Go slowly?"

I try not to tell folks that because I am a coral junky and when I see a coral that I need to buy I don't wait, I just get it and hope that it will adapt to the jungle of coral that are already in the tank.

Right now your tank seems to want to grow hair algae. If you can, let the tank ride out the need to mature and grow the green algae for awhile, and sooner or later the algae will pass. Once that happens, the tank is going to be a lot better place for corals to thrive in, ime. If you rush adding stuff you will have to work hard to keep after that algae to prevent it from growing over the corals and possibly killing them.

Once the coralline gets rolling and the hair is fading like an old man, then the coral can be added to grow and thrive where the hair is now present. Go slow.

You can pull the hair, scrub it, attack it with an @brandon429 "Rip-Clean" effort, add CUC, and what not to speed up the process but until that stage is passed the less you add the less you will have to work to keep things alive until it does stop growing the weeds. It's a natural succession and part of the process of ecosystem maturation, as far as I can tell.

Gl.

I don’t plan on buying coral for the rock on the top at the moment, im just looking for coral suggestions because it’s a tricky place for coral. Since it receives a lot of light and flow it should probably be used for sps but it is also very high up in the tank and almost near the water line. The algae on that rock is also very stubborn; Its been there for around 3 months and I’m working on it by just removing what I can everytime I do a water change. However, I do want to stock the purple rock with one or two small frags now since there isn’t much hair algae on that rock and my lps coral are doing good.

 

[KrisReef]

Ahh!
I don't know what you like to look at but I would probably put an encruster of some sort that had color(s) I wanted to spread out over the area. The problem I have struggled with is that there are so many corals and really very little space in the majority of the tanks in our hobby. Real world problems, I wish I owned an oceanic reef in Fiji.