4 basic needs of corals

All corals have four basic needs required to survive — water quality, food, light, and water movement. In general, hard or SPS/LPS corals are not as flexible as their soft coral cousins, making Mushrooms, Zoanthids, Polyps and Leather Corals some of the favourites for both novice and experienced reef keepers .

Listed below are the 4 basic requirement categories of corals, each of which includes important points that pertain to them. However, keep in mind that corals can be finicky. Species within any given genus can have widely varied light, current, water quality, or other special needs, which makes it essential that any individual coral species be researched thoroughly before buying it.

Water Quality
• Trace Minerals & Elements
• Calcium. Minimum level 380 ppm. Ideally 450 ppm
• strontium
• iodine
• magnesium
• Ammonia should be as close to 0 as possible.
• Nitrite should also be as close to 0 as possible
• nitrate should be below 10 ppm
• phosphate below 0.3 ppm
• pH between 8 and 8.5
• alkalinity between 3.2 and 4.5 mg per litre
• temperature between 24 and 27 Celsius
• salinity between 1.023 and 1.025

Food
• Zooplankton requirements vary by Coral species and plankton type
• Dissolved organic compounds others get the nutrients from broken down organic matter suspended in the water.

Light
• Requirements vary by coral species.
• Soft corals generally require less light, while those hard corals that live by photosynthesis need more intense light.
• For stony photosynthetic species, the lack of adequate lighting

Water Movement
• Requirements vary by coral species.
• Some corals require a water surge to flush debris from their surfaces.

Care should be taken when mixing different corals in an aquarium. As an example: some corals do not “play well” with certain other coral types in a closed aquarium system. Many soft corals (i.e. Actinodiscus) should not be placed near most LPS/SPS corals, as they may have a detrimental effect on some hard corals.
It cannot be over stressed — do the research is the h before buying anything!