Starting a Coral QT and Grow out. Questions...

[Patrick Cox]

I am looking at starting a Coral QT / Grow out tank and I have a couple of questions. I am looking at a 31G Lagoon AIO for this. I will simply have frag racks in the tank with coral frags. Not sure about inverts but no fish for now. The purpose of the tank is a place where I can keep new frags for observation and maybe growth before placing in my main display tank. I have not run a coral only tank so my questions are...

1. How much do I need to worry about biological filtration? Will a tank with no fish generate a lot of ammonia / nitrite / nitrate?

2. What would water change requirements be on a tank like this?

Any other thoughts or suggestions on this project will be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[TX_REEF]

I am looking at starting a Coral QT / Grow out tank and I have a couple of questions. I am looking at a 31G Lagoon AIO for this. I will simply have frag racks in the tank with coral frags. Not sure about inverts but no fish for now. The purpose of the tank is a place where I can keep new frags for observation and maybe growth before placing in my main display tank. I have not run a coral only tank so my questions are...

1. How much do I need to worry about biological filtration? Will a tank with no fish generate a lot of ammonia / nitrite / nitrate?

2. What would water change requirements be on a tank like this?

Any other thoughts or suggestions on this project will be appreciated.

Thanks!

1. you'll want the same level of biologicial filtration, i.e mature rock or bio media. You can place this in the AIO filter chamber instead of display, of course
2. 10% weekly is always a good idea.

Finally, you probably will want some fish to provide organics to the corals. Wrasse or damsels are good for pod/pest control and won't bother corals.

 

[Spare time]

I am looking at starting a Coral QT / Grow out tank and I have a couple of questions. I am looking at a 31G Lagoon AIO for this. I will simply have frag racks in the tank with coral frags. Not sure about inverts but no fish for now. The purpose of the tank is a place where I can keep new frags for observation and maybe growth before placing in my main display tank. I have not run a coral only tank so my questions are...

1. How much do I need to worry about biological filtration? Will a tank with no fish generate a lot of ammonia / nitrite / nitrate?

2. What would water change requirements be on a tank like this?

Any other thoughts or suggestions on this project will be appreciated.

Thanks!

1. The nitrogen cycle won't be much of a concern, but it wouldn't hurt to add something to handle it. To be honest, I would put a small thing of rock (something a fish could hide and sleep around) and a small algae eating fish or two). The corals will appreciate it and you can throw in a little bit of macro algae to handle excess waste if its an issue. It all depends on if this is more of a grow out or a QT. A QT should be easily cleaned and easy to spot pests.

2. Possible none. It all depends on what all you want to supplement and test.

3. The main thing about a coral grow out is you need to treat it like any other tank. Good flow, lots of algae eaters, etc.