Coral Help

[StripesTheEel]

Hey everyone,

I currently have a 4 1/2 foot reef tank, that I am not having success with corals. I dont have halide lighting due to the tanks makeup so my lfs said i could half 6-8 dispersed corals throughout the tank if i have actinic lighting, so i currently have x3 10000 lights x2 white x1 blue. i have one coral in there atm, unsure of the name cannot find it anywhere on the net, but i heard it may be called "golf ball coral" it looks like a golf ball when its not blooming, its green. but for some reason its not coming out. just wondering what kinda water conditions this species can handle (watermovement etc..) and any other suggestions of soft and/or hard corals that may be suitable for a tank with VHO lighting (actinic), scientific or normal specie names will be fine..

THX

[Fluff]

I believe what you have is a favia fragum. If so, they require moderate light and waterflow and can be placed just about anywhere in the tank. What size tank do you have (gallons) and what is your bulb wattage? I think you'll probably do ok with soft corals like, tree corals, mushrooms, xenya, yellow polyps, some zoos, leathers, etc. As well as maybe some lps corals like bubbles, hammers, frogspawn, fox and open brains.

[StripesTheEel]

300 L not sure what they is in gallons.. i have x3 actinic lights at 10000 w per globe.., im after coral pieces that may illuminate at night, or add that wow factor to the tank.. will all the coral you mentioned be okay under actinic lighting?

[Fluff]

That's about 79 US gallons. The lights you are using... should say that they are either 55w, 65w, 95w, something like that. The 10,000K isn't the wattage. The corals I mentioned will do fine under actinic. The blue one is the only actinic, the white ones are daylight bulbs. Some soft corals will glow under the blue light. Like zoos and riccordia. And some lps's will like, the fox coral and brains.

[Phyl]

10K is the temperature or color. How long are the bulbs and do you know if they are PC or VHO or NO? People generally talk about lights in watts per gallon. For example on my 120 I have 260w of light (2.16wpg). That's pretty low on the scale. Most people who want to keep moderate to high light corals will have upwards of 4-6wpg.

In my tank I have some pom pom xenia that's growing like a weed out of control, some beautiful mushrooms, a brain, and some zoos (well that and lots of other stuff that I keep way up high on my rock work, lol). These corals really add to the WOW factor in the tank.

300L is 79.2g. If your bulbs are 65w per bulb then you'd be running 195w over 80 is 2.43 watts per gallon. So roughly what I have.

[StripesTheEel]

my lights are about 4 feet in length.. and i think theyre 95 w.. (just checked the box - which i unbelievably kept).. so if i go with corals like u have PHYL i should be fine.. if anyone can post pics of corals that'd work i'd appreciate it.. ive got a pic of a brain.. or any websites that may have these corals..!! this favia fragum i have moved it 3 or 4 times.. cannot find a good position haha.. here goes the 5th time..

[Phyl]

Fluff, looks like we posted at the same time (and just about the same thing, lol).

My Frogspawn seems to be doing well (been in the tank since January and it seems to be growing nicely) also. You can't beat that for WOW factor. It looks really cool. Check my gallery for pics of my candy cane, frogspawn and hairy mushrooms. Or google for them. You should find them with no problem.