First Coral list

[seasmurf]

Well, its been 5 weeks since my 90 gallon tank completed cycling, diatom bloom has passed and green hair algae growth has abated. I put a cleanup crew of snails in my tank last week and they seem to be going to town in taking care of the remaining algae growth.

On the water quality side, my parameters look good with the exception of pH which has very slowly been rising to 7.9-8.0 with nitrate dropping below 5.0 ppm. I figured to wait another week or two to make sure the water quality continues to improve and then start adding corals.

I am using LED lighting (2 x AI Sol Blue) and have it turned down to 35% W, 45% B & RB for 10 hours a day ramping up and down over 1 hour. After adding corals, I plan to increase the light intensity by about 5% per week and see how the corals respond.

I plan to initially stay away from SPS corals until the tank gets more mature. I planned to start out with 6 specimens (small plugs) and was wondering if folks had any opinions on how these choices were for starting out my tank? Also, any suggestions for better/alternative choices? I'm particulary concerned about their ability to tolerate my LED lighting.

Lemon Drop Zooanthid
Orange Ricordia
Neon Green Star Polyp
Cabbage Leather Coral
Kenya Tree coral
Pulsing Xenia

Thanks for the opinions!

[ItzJustinN]

i dont think you will have any problems with those corals. i have alot of those pieces myself with less-than-perfect light/water conditions and mine are doing just fine.

[cwinn]

Those are all definitely great starter corals. Very easy to maintain fme and quite hardy! Good luck!

[thegrun]

Those are all good starter corals, but be careful, Star Polyps, Kenya Trees and Xenia can all spread rapidly and dominate a tank. Here is a web site listing other good starter corals and a couple of other lists of corals and their needs for future reference:
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/coralcare/ig/15-Easy-Corals/
http://www.peteducation.com/category.cfm?c=16+2157
https://sites.google.com/a/asira.org/www2/caresheets

[seasmurf]

Thanks, everyone!

[StaghornE]

I would isolate the star polyps and the Xenia. I know at first corals growing all over everything is exiting but a year or two from now those corals will kill every thing they can over come. Many people under estimate green star polyps sting. I've seen it kill many sps/ Lps/ zoos. Just keep them under control.