First coral

[duckhuntboy]

I am planning on buying a red sea xenia pretty soon for my 7gbowfront, 7lb LR, 2.5"Sand bed, 100g/h powerhead and whisper 10g skimmer no media. Lighting is two 13watt pc's. I've never gotten a coral before, so here are my questions.

 

1. Can my tank host a xenia coral comfortably?

 

I'd like to know about glueing the coral to the rock. I'd like to use the "attach to sand then glue the sand" method for the coral, and am wondering how I would glue it to the rock....

 

2. Do I stick the tube of super glue gel in the water? Will it work?

 

3. Should I avoid air contact with my xenia coral completely? Should the transfer be water to water?

 

I am also planning on leaving my lights completely on, and setting the coral under an archway in the rock. Over the period of a week, I would finally place the coral where I wanted it near the top of the tank..

 

4. Is this a good method for placing corals?????

[Deimos]

Duck,

 

Take a deep breath....corals in general are a lot hardier than most give them credit for (myself included in the beginning).

 

1. Xenia is usually a hit or miss coral...for most it grows like a weed..for the unfortunate (or is that fortunate..considering what I've seen Xenia do in reef tanks..lol) it shrivels up and dies...as far as your setup goes..I'd say you're more than fine for Xenia..but as always..YMMV.

 

2. Good luck gluing Xenia..lol. If you aren't buying it attached to a piece of LR rubble..then I'd suggest going with the tupperware method. Take a tupperware container (I use the "disposable" type)...punch some holes all over it and its lid...toss some LR rubble in it..put the Xenia on top..put the top on..and put the whole science experiment into the tank. Xenia attaches fairly quickly...so within a couple of days it should have attached itself to a piece of rubble..then if you want to glue that rubble to some LR..go to town.

 

3. Which brings us to using cyanoacrilate superglue gel in the first place. NO..don't use it underwater..you'll end up with a bloody mess. To use the superglue..take the rock you want to attach the frag to out of the tank...dry it off...put a good sized glob of glue on it and let it sit for about a minute...then...jam the frag into the glue..wait another 30 seconds..then send it back to the tank. I only use superglue on SPS and LPS frag (things with nice hard calcium skeletons and less mucous!). For softies I much prefer the tupperware method.

 

4. (completely messing up my numbering here..lol) Don't worry too too much about air contact..especially with softies. I worry a bit more with SPS and LPS corals (because of the possibility of air bubbles getting trapped in the skeleton) but I still don't usually hesistate to expose them to air. Like I said...generally hardier than you think!! (anecdotally..don't take this as gospel by any means, and also realize that I only have captive propagated corals in my tanks, myself and several other reefers I know don't do much in the way of acclimating corals at all. I will occassionally drip acclimate them..but with 90% of my frags..I just temp acclimate them in a bag and then open em up and toss em in my tank. I have yet to have a single frag die on me while doing this...corals are much hardier than most give them credit for!)

 

5. If you're worried about light acclimation..I wouldn't be...your PC lighting probably isn't as strong as the MH's that most LFS keep their corals under (most good LFS that is..again..YMMV). But if you are going to light-acclimate them..then yes..your method is fine.

 

WOW..lot of typing...and I know I'm probably going to get flamed by the Polyp Police...but there you have it......Hope that Helps....

[Flood]

Ah.. Interesting. Thanks, good read.

[duckhuntboy]

That was the best post reply I've ever gotten. Thanks a lot, Deimos! That answers everything.

[tinyreef]

duck,

you may want to try an easier coral to start with. like deimos says they can be hit/miss and that can be discouraging and $$$ to be on the miss side. when they crash, they crash fast. poof!

 

zoanthids and green star polyps are good starter corals. mushrooms are too but can interfere with other corals down the road more often ime. if the 'easier' ones do fine, you're more likely to be successful with xenia, colts, etc. imo.

 

i would disagree on the light acclimation tho. as a rule i always darken the tank for four hours for any new intro, even if it's the middle of the photoperiod. the small pc lights you have may be smaller but they're (typically) much closer (source to target) and in a smaller area. so the light intensity may be as much or more than some mh or vho setups in the lfs.

 

i try to err on the weaker side rather than chance it. your perception of your conditions may not match with ours. a good guideline to follow is "try not to do anything sudden." remember grass grows about 50x faster than corals (usually). the hobby adage is "good things happen slow, bad things happen fast." good luck!