First 2 coral pieces

[Salts001]

I just picked up my first 2 corals at the LFS today – zoa and frogspawn. Also picked up 6 margarita snails. The LFS were giving 20% off on all live stock for the superbowl weekend…pretty cool. What are your thoughts and tips as to keeping the corals a live and increase growth (still new to this)? They are so tiny and I hope they grow. Thx. :bounce:

 

[Smitty]

Congrats on the new pieces...they should do very well for you. Start them out on the sand like you have and gradually move them up to med flow and med light.

 

[little_fish]

+1 smitty

Also just fyi, margarita snails are a cold water snail and just boil to death in our tanks. You should try and avoid purchasing them.

 

[markrj]

Nice corals!

My margarita snails are thriving in my tank. I even have several baby snails that look very much like margaritas. They have outlived my two Turbo snails which died not long after the first algae bloom was over.

 

[little_fish]

the baby snails arent turbos, they are another type of snail in the same family as the turbo though. They wont get much bigger than they are now, and keep an eye on your zoas, some of the tiny types will eat soft corals (sundial snails)

 

[Salts001]

I don't want to double post but might have put this question in the wrong area before...it was in reference to the new powerhead I picked up for the 2 new corals.

"I just put in the new powerhead and it's really quiet can barely hear it. What are you recommendations on placement? Right now all the live rock is against the back all and I have the powerhead at the front bottom left. The return is coming in at the back center dropping in on a 45 to the front right. That also leads to another question – the return is currently a 45 degree pvc and I have a 90 degree pvc that I can use are well but that will breaking into the surface causing the ripple effect and bubble or is that what I want as well.

I guess the ultimate question is what should I be trying to achieve as far as water flow, how do create that, what should I avoid, etc.?"

 

[little_fish]

You want to get flow everywhere, this can be kinda hard to do and will take some playing around with the powerheads. You can aim the flow at rocks, the walls, each other to make the jet stream bounce off stuff and get a more random flow pattern. I wouldnt point the powerhead directly at the corals, they dont like that, they like indirect flow. I would make sure at least one of your powerheads is pointed at the surface so you get good gas exchange.

 

[Salts001]

what do u want to the surface of the water to be doing? breaking causing bubbles or just enough water movement at the surface for a shimmering effect?

 

[Smitty]

You want a rippling effect at the top of your water, to help with gas exchange.

 

[Salts001]

day 3 they are stil holding up. I relocated the powerhead over a dozen times to get the flow i was looking for. I first moved the PH to the top and angle up to creater a ripple effect. That worked it was creating to much circulation where sand was getting kicked up and no matter where i put the frogspawn it looking like a palm tree in a hurricane...ended up moving the PH to the middle and still keeping it aimed up but put a rock in front of the 2 pieces of coral to block some the water flow. now i think they are both happy...the frogspawn looks even more full now and zoa seems I guess fine the edges are curling up anymore.

without a doubt the 1400 PH is strong!!!

 

[Smitty]

The tank looks good.