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Welcome! Glad you joinedHello, new reefer ready. Want to purchase first coal but nervous. What do you sughest?
My tank is about a year and a half old. I added Corals about 6 months ago. I have a good number that have survived, but probably more that haven't. Advice from my recent learning/experience.
- Green button polyps (protopalythoa, I think) are immortal. They came with my live rock. Nothing will kill them.
- Get at least 1 ICP test before adding corals. ICP from three different companies identified low iodine in my tank, which I think is the root cause of my biggest die off. You don't have to get your numbers perfect, just make sure nothing is way off.
- Start slow. I got pulled in by the black Friday sales and local reefers taking down tanks. I bought 30+ frags for $500. Good deal. But most didn't make it (due to the iodine issue). Spend a bit more per frag to buy just a few and prove they'll live before going big.
- I'm not sold on QT or dipping. I dipped all my corals and QTd them for 45 days. All did well in QT except a few zoas. Then they died in my DT. It's a lot of work and expense. If you're buying from a well known specialized dealer like WWC or from the president of the local reef club, I think the risk is low and the stress on the corals of dipping and multiple moves is probably bad. This may be especially true if your QT doesn't have great light. Low light won't kill them quick, but they adjust to it. Then when you put them in high light in your DT, that can kill them quick. (This is my other hypothesis about why my frags didn't make it in QT).
- Consider rock nems. They don't die. They come in lots of colors. I love them.
- Buy from local reefers. Of my frags that lived, ones from local reefers are over-represented. My hypothesis is that if it survived and grew enough to need fragging for someone else, it's more likely to do well for you. Maybe it's something in the water that even RO/DI doesn't remove or something like that. (This is just speculation on my part, nothing scientific.)