Getting into reefing

[Kswish74]

Title pretty much says it all, i have a 125 gal long tank with 4 ai sol blues. I'm wanting to start my hand in doing reefing and adding different types of coral. What are some of the does and donts of reefing. Tank has been established for roughly 3-4 years. It has most been fish with a few anemones and some zoa's. any tips and or tricks are appreciated!! Tank parameters are as followed
High range ph-8.2
Salt salinty-1.025
Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates-0
Calcium-480
Alk-11

There are a few pictures of the tank. I have a rose bubble tip anemone, flower pot green, and some frog spawn right now. Also have two little frags of zoa's but I want this tank to turn out very colorful.

 

[Bubs2]

Stability

 

[Duke4Life]

Patience, patience, and more patience. Nothing good happens fast. A good quarantine setup is invaluable.

 

[tankstudy]

For corals, you'll want a QT setup. The number one thing over the years to crash my tanks are not stability issues, its an outbreak of unwanted pests. Dips do a good job but they aren't enough for the much more resilient pests.

 

[Kswish74]

Patience, patience, and more patience. Nothing good happens fast. A good quarantine setup is invaluable.

I do have a 30gal qt tank setup and has been setup for about a month

 

[Kswish74]

Patience, patience, and more patience. Nothing good happens fast. A good quarantine setup is invaluable.

Yeah, that's what I lack lol. Patience will be the death of me!

 

[Salty1962]

Patience, Stability, QT and reading as much as you can find about what you're wanting to add to your tank. I would search the threads about reef tanks to give you some good advice. Start off with some simple SPS corals until you get the hang of things, it will save you allot of $$ and frustration. You may want to bump the Alk down a little;)

 

[Kswish74]

Patience, Stability, QT and reading as much as you can find about what you're wanting to add to your tank. I would search the threads about reef tanks to give you some good advice. Start off with some simple SPS corals until you get the hang of things, it will save you allot of $$ and frustration. You may want to bump the Alk down a little;)

I haven't test alk in a month or so, been doing 15% water changes every week to get it down. I had to add some not so good water awhile back

 

[Kswish74]

Long story short I did a water change on tap water and it spiked everything, even with using tap water conditioner. Been trying to get phosphates back under control ever since

 

[Salty1962]

I haven't test alk in a month or so, been doing 15% water changes every week to get it down. I had to add some not so good water awhile back

OH NO! Not tap water:eek::eek:

 

[Kswish74]

OH NO! Not tap water:eek::eek:

Learned from that mistake! lol I was using conditioner though. Didn't lose any fish or anything though!

 

[Salty1962]

Learned from that mistake! lol I was using conditioner though. Didn't lose any fish or anything though!

You won't be able to keep a reef tank happy with that;) Need the purist water you can get.

 

[Kswish74]

You won't be able to keep a reef tank happy with that;) Need the purist water you can get.

I know, lol usually I do use ro water!