First coral purchase list

[sgallagher7]

My tank has been up and running for the past 3 months. Tank has cycled, and parameters have been monitored and adjusted. Have had some problems with dino and some cyno but both seem to be in check. Now is the time for my first coral purchase. I have done a great deal of reading on the corals and hope my list is a good starting point for the tank.

Zoanthids
Mushrooms
Ricordia yuma
star polyps
Favia
Torch
Frogspawn
Plate

These wont be purchased all at once, but over the next 5 months. No fish have been introduced into the tank yet.

Hopefully I can get some feedback as to whether I have a good "starter" list created. Notice that an anenome is not on the list yet or sps's. I want to get some experience first before adding these.

[m_wonnacott]

Before any one can advice on that list they are going to need to know what lighting you have

[drummereef]

You've got 6x54 T5's, right? All of the above are good corals to start out with imo. All fairly easy corals to take care of. Just make sure you are on a balanced alkalinity and calcium suppliment before you move forward. Either 2-Part or Kalk would be a good choice. ;)

[sgallagher7]

The lights I have are the teck T5 6 bulb set-up.

1 GE 3000K
1 ATI Aquablue (12000 K)
1 GE Daylights (6500 K)
2 ATI Blue plus
1 UVL Super Actinic

The middle 4 are overdriven with and Icecap 660 Ballast.

[sgallagher7]

I use kalk in my auto top off water. The only suppliments so far have been to raise calcium and magnesium. Alk has been elevated by the kalk so i can keep the dino's in check.

[supervdl]

All good corals - the torch or the frogspawn can be a tick more difficult than the others. Make sure you buy very healthy pieces and they can be infested by some algae at times especially if they are broken off from larger pieces. Just take a good look at them in the shop.

[Lotus99]

Those sound like good starter corals. Mushrooms are a great first coral.

I've only recently started adding corals, and my first ones were some mushrooms, followed by some ricordea and then a hammer and some zoanthids. So far, everything is doing well, so I guess they're good starter corals :)

One aquarist on here always takes a magnifying glass with him to the store to check out the corals up close.

[mr_o98]

Mushrooms and zoas are definetly good beginner corals. Star polyps are nice corals but can multiply like wildfire.

[Jrmass]

Really just about any kind of "polyp" isn't a bad starter coral. Zoa's aren't bad either. Best thing I can say is stay clear of corals that have High lighting needs or require high water movement unless you have your powerheads set the way that they need to be run. (which is something that I made the mistake of doing when I first setup my tank and only had a 192 watt PC fixture as well as only 2 maxijet 1200 powerheads for circulation).

Jason

[sgallagher7]

Thanks for all the good feedback. I was planning on either buying my corals from a good online vendor or on the RC. Good or bad idea? In tucson we are limited by very few LFS's.

[FragMan07]

I agree with the others, Mushrooms were the first addition to the tank and they accustomed very well. Next came the Star Polyps, which do spread like widlfire, so keep an eye out. Personally I love them when you have a good flow going, but if you don't keep an eye out they can overtake your other corals. Currently I'm adding Zoa's from time to time. Been about 6 months for me and things are coming along pretty well.

[sgallagher7]

Thanks all for the feedback. Thinking of getting some from marinedepotlive.com and some from the rc.