Am I LPS worthy?

[DriftingNemo]

Hello everyone. After heavily upgrading my 14 gallon 24"x12"x12" tank, I finally think that it's time for me to start adding stony corals. I am having success with the Medusa Coral, Brown polyps, Pulsing Xenia, GSP and mushrooms.

 

Tank Specs:

14g tank

260 gph external canister filter with bio-balls, ceramic media, filter floss and live rock rubble

around 12lbs of rock (live and semi-live)

1/2" deep sand bed

Koralia 900 powerhead

24w Marine Hybrid PC

2x 3 watt cheap eBay led's (for night time viewing)

 

Parameters:

 

Calcium - 520ppm

KH - 11

Phosphate - 0.25ppm

Nitrate - below 20ppm

pH - 8.0

sg - 1.025 and ammonia and nitrate are obviously zero.

Could anyone please suggest some hardy LPS species? My LFS offers a good choice of different types of coral.

[tetraodon]

Hammer, frogspawn, acans all are good amd hardy, ive never used PC lights so I cant comment if the light is enough

[DriftingNemo]

I was also looking at Candy Cane corals, they look quite nice. The frogspawn is appealing too, hopefully my clownfish would host it.

[Boggers]

The above will live in the PC light, but will not grow as quickly under better light. That being said, I think your Ca is high and you should get that down to 450 range.

My clowns prefer my zoas. They have not tried the frogspawn

[DriftingNemo]

So how do I reduce my Calcium levels? I think that Stony corals would enjoy the Ca levels and absorb quite a bit of it. I would love to have zoas, but none of my local fish stores have attractive looking species.

[GHill762]

calcium at 520 will not harm any lps you put in there ime.. give it a shot, there are a few touchy lps but in general lps is pretty easy to keep..

 

if your lfs has ugly limited selection of coral, I'd suggest shopping online or traveling a little farther to a decent lfs.. you'll be much happier that way. been there, done that.. still trying to get rid of all the ugly crap I got from my lfs..

[Boggers]

Normal salt mixes don't get Ca up that high, I assumed you were dosing. If not I would suggest you have it retested as too high is bad as well (not quite there yet, but not ideal range either). However, rest of the tank looks good to go for some of the easier corals.

Sucks that you can't find any good zoas. I know I have had to ask them to get a few items in for me.

[doppelganger]

I know reef crystals has pretty high calcium. Sometimes like 450-500 range. Couple that with test kits which may not be that accurate and maybe it can get that high. I wouldn't worry about it tho. Especially if you're not dosing anything and it's just your water changes. Stability is more important.

 

LPS aren't too hard. Some are harder than others but like mentioned, usually euphyllia's (frogspawn and hammer), caulastrea's (candy canes, trumpets, bullseyes), and duncans are some of the top easy and fairly cheap first options.

[DriftingNemo]

I use Red Sea salt and have been dosing Calcium (which I stopped doing a couple of days ago). I have tested 3 times and the results popped up the same. I asked the guys at my LFS if they could get me some hallucinogenic looking zoas, but they said that they can't choose what type of zoas they order, they get whatever zoas the supplier sends. I'm going to pick up either a Candy Cane or a Frogspawn coral tomorrow.

[doppelganger]

if that's the case, you'll calcium will gradually drop if you stop dosing and just do regular water changes. Like boggers said, try and keep it in the 400's. especially since you don't even have any coral need large amounts of calcium.

[DriftingNemo]

Well I've managed to get a Candy Cane coral frag with 2 large heads on it for $15. Had it for a day now and it's fully opened up and is being light acclimated.

[SchnauzerFace]

I don't think Ca 520 will hurt anything, but I've found that stability is even more important than specific numbers. So if you introduce them into a tank with Ca 520, be prepared to either keep it there or drop it very gradually.

 

Nitrates ~20ppm isn't the worst thing, but I wouldn't let it creep any higher than that. I'd try to lower that, too, but it's less important for LPS than SPS.

 

Frogspawns and torch corals are pretty hardy. Chalices and favia are some of my favorites, and they adapt quite well, too. I couldn't tell you for sure if cyphastrea is a true LPS or SPS, but meteor shower cyphastrea are relatively easy to find and they grow super fast.

 

Good luck!

[DriftingNemo]

Thanks, and my Nitrates used to be 40ppm only until I switched to a canister filter 3 weeks ago. It's still taking time for all of that extra bacterial goodness to grow in and I haven't even had the chance to use my new RO unit. When I start pumping some good RO water in to my tank, the Nitrates should drop even more. And as for calcium, I need to test it every other day to allow that gradual decrease.

[masterbuilder]

 

Kidding...you're good to go. As others have said.....let your calcium drop down on its own to the mid 400's

[DriftingNemo]

I only recently got in to calcium dosing and I just need to figure out a dosing routine (I don't have dosing pumps, I'm poor) or not even dose at all if my tank is able to sustain the calcium levels.

[DriftingNemo]

Lied about the Nitrate being 20ppm, tested it a minute ago and it's 5ppm.