Best Beginner Coral

[Gregcoyote]

Originally Posted by mr_X

Not unless it was a quality LED strip with decent output. Not all LEDs are created equal, and chances are, if this is a 50 or 100 dollar strip, it's nothing more than eye candy.

Hank- you will soon see what I mean about the kenya tree coral!

He is right. Decent LED lights start at $250 and go up rapidly. An equivalent to 250MH starts at $300 and can go as high as $1000.
The Kenya coral can take your tank over, but I have found if you just pick up the frags it drops, it can be kept under control. Octocorals like waving hand and Xenia can also take over the tank. Many of the encrusting corals can get out of hand, but placement of rocks for it to grow on will allow you to remove some of it now and again and sell it!

[catmel]

Ive had really good luck with zoas, green star polyps ( if you prune them by cutting the mat and selling/trading them it wont get out of hand), & mushrooms - seems to survive less than ideal conditions ( I had lots of nutrient issues algae problems when I started up my 55) and dont require lots of light.

check this out too
Beginner Corals: Corals Suitable for Beginners in Saltwater Aquariums

[MarineEddy]

Thanks for the link!

[Sniperhank]

+1! I have all of my corals that grow quickly and so on on their own rocks for that exact reason. Sell/Trade. My first coral, the keyna, was a frag out of one of the employees home tank. The kenya might not be a frag people would be looking for...but some of the corals that came after that most def would be.

[Animal-Chin]

All my coral are doing amazing but the easiest by far in my tank are...

Mushrooms
Colt
Finger Leather

Had these three since my Nano tank as for LPS I have these and they are all rockin...

Brain
Torch
Hammer
Pipe Organ
Galaxy
Plate (although needs feeding)

Lots of these i bought as frags and they just took off. I just watch my calcium and add trace elements. I feed them twice a week with coral frenzy. I'd stay away from non photosynthetic at first. I have sun coral and yellow finger gorgonian coral but both need target feeding often to stay alive.

Basically as soon as you know how to keep one alive I've found you can keep them all alive and growing and happy. Its about the light, water and food.

[Heera]

Originally Posted by MarineEddy

Heera are you switching to RO at the moment or did you finish switching last week? Did you have corals in before you were 100% RO or not?
Mr X I ended up with 2 T8s. One is called 'Marine Glo' and is actinic. I don't know what the other is called but the guy in my lfs said it could support corals. I do know it has a high colour spectrum for quite a lot of colours though.

My tank has been running on tap water for a year. I switched over last week by start adding RoDI water as topoff water. And did a water change yesterday with RODi water.
* thing that helped me a lot were;
Test tap water ph before water changes and adjust to ur tank ph.
( my city water runs between 5.8- 7 ph.)
- I use prime as declorineator
- make sure water is right ph and temp before adding salt. And let it mix for 24-48 hours.
- go +1 on the skimmer
- weekly water changes 15%.

[MrPeon99]

Pom Pom Xenia's are easy. As are Kenya trees... Neither of which I will put in a new tank again. I'm tired of having to trim them almost every week. The Xenia's have about 4 inch stalks. The Kenya trees drop new branches every week and the Xenia's just grow like weeds.

[Gregcoyote]

That's what makes them beginner corals. They can and do mysteriously crash every now and then even so.

[MrPeon99]

I wish mine would crash. I pulled out several pieces of live rock yesterday and cleaned a bunch of Xenia's off. That picture was taken afterwards.

[Fish-guy]

I love my green star polyps and Xenia. I love how they spread. I wish they even grew faster. Looks great in my tank if things are covered in these colors. I just don't like my Kenya. There are small Kenya frags everywhere! And nobody wants to buy them.

[Gregcoyote]

Originally Posted by MrPeon99

I wish mine would crash. I pulled out several pieces of live rock yesterday and cleaned a bunch of Xenia's off. That picture was taken afterwards.

Try growing it on purpose. I had a huge head of colt coral mysteriously crash multiple times with no other corals showing any signs of distress. They are a weed, but there are factors that seem to specifically affect them.

[mr_X]

I agree. Xenia was a plague in my tank and then one day it suddenly died off and i was never able to grow it again.

[Gregcoyote]

It grows like a weed in my algae scrubber, but not the main tank. It is even all pulsing like mad.

[spoonman]

I was told yesterday by my LFS that the pulsing xenia pulse more when they are not getting what they need. The pulse to try to pull stuff from the water. If the current is good and the nutrients are in the water they dont pulse as much..true?

[Gregcoyote]

Originally Posted by spoonman

I was told yesterday by my LFS that the pulsing xenia pulse more when they are not getting what they need. The pulse to try to pull stuff from the water. If the current is good and the nutrients are in the water they dont pulse as much..true?

I don't know that I buy that. If you look into it, most folks say their Xenia stops pulsing in the display tank after awhile, while still reproducing. Mine wouldn't grow or pulse in my main reef, but when I put hem in my algae scrubber/refugium, the wave action from the dump buckets really set it off. It only sits inches under the surface and it is all very stocky and numerous. I like it there as the coral is so voracious, it is impossible to imagine a piece of unbeaten food getting past it. I think anytime you can get the organism to behave as it does in the wild, the closer you are to making it happy.

[Leighton79]

I don't buy it either.

I have a eutrophic type tank with Xenia that grows visibly daily, it pulses like mad.

I have an oligotrophic tank with a frag that barely survives and never pulses at all.

I can only go from my personal experience so that's all really.