When to add soft corals...

[LordJoshaeus]

When is it safe to add soft corals? Can I add them during "the uglies", or should I wait for sometime later? I have two saltwater tanks, a ten gallon (with 1.5 lbs live rock, the rest dry rock...should I add more live rock?) whose sole current occupant is a molly named Curtis (not sure whether "he" will be a permanent fixture of the tank, but "he" is doing just fine) and a 5 gallon qt (with 50/50 live and dry rock...the live rock came from my lfs with a mushroom coral and some other polyps I am not quite sure what they are, but they all seem to be doing fine) that may or may not receive a permanent coral population; I am getting lights for both systems around Monday and will run them for 6 hours a day (the 5 gallon is under a custom 6500k rig originally intended for houseplants but which will likely be used for mangroves in the future). Obviously I won't get any more corals before that happens...anyhow, thanks :) (ps...how many corals should I initially add, and should I qt them in the 5 gallon first?)

 

[coralcollector98]

I would start off slow and see how they do, start with 1, give it 2 weeks and then add another, it is definitely do able to add corals in the ugly phase but can certainly irritate them as well if the dinos get out of hand

 

[Baldyreef]

When is it safe to add soft corals? Can I add them during "the uglies", or should I wait for sometime later? I have two saltwater tanks, a ten gallon (with 1.5 lbs live rock, the rest dry rock...should I add more live rock?) whose sole current occupant is a molly named Curtis (not sure whether "he" will be a permanent fixture of the tank, but "he" is doing just fine) and a 5 gallon qt (with 50/50 live and dry rock...the live rock came from my lfs with a mushroom coral and some other polyps I am not quite sure what they are, but they all seem to be doing fine) that may or may not receive a permanent coral population; I am getting lights for both systems around Monday and will run them for 6 hours a day (the 5 gallon is under a custom 6500k rig originally intended for houseplants but which will likely be used for mangroves in the future). Obviously I won't get any more corals before that happens...anyhow, thanks :) (ps...how many corals should I initially add, and should I qt them in the 5 gallon first?)

how long has the tank been running? softies are pretty resilient

 

[LordJoshaeus]

how long has the tank been running? softies are pretty resilient

Not very long...I think around 2 weeks for the ten, I set the five up Sunday. I want to get the lights AND my salifert ammonia, nitrite (I know nitrite is not very toxic in saltwater, but it would still be good to know where it is at) and nitrate tests in before I add any other critters. Fortunately my LFS carries a variety of corals, so if I need to wait a bit I won't need to risk shipping them into New England during the impending winter.

 

[Baldyreef]

Not very long...I think around 2 weeks for the ten, I set the five up Sunday. I want to get the lights AND my salifert ammonia, nitrite (I know nitrite is not very toxic in saltwater, but it would still be good to know where it is at) and nitrate tests in before I add any other critters. Fortunately my LFS carries a variety of corals, so if I need to wait a bit I won't need to risk shipping them into New England during the impending winter.

got it, I would personally wait a little longer to add softies to the 10g just because it's still a pretty young tank and while they're resilient coral the swings that the tank could experience can stress them out, it all depends on where your at in the tank's cycle but I would give it maybe a couple more weeks (2-3)

 

[MC Blowfish]

I would wait. Your tank is very new. While soft corals are fairly easy to take care of, you don't want to get in a situation where your parameters get out of hand, and have to think about how to take care of the corals.

Maybe give it a month or two. Add one, give your tank a week or two before you add another.

 

[mfinn]

got it, I would personally wait a little longer to add softies to the 10g just because it's still a pretty young tank and while they're resilient coral the swings that the tank could experience can stress them out, it all depends on where your at in the tank's cycle but I would give it maybe a couple more weeks (2-3)

Yes this ^^^^