I dont know why i love leather toads, but i do and yours is awesome!my first coral was a toadstool leather - still have it over a year later and its quite big now.
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Its not a bad 1st coral. It will react based on your water chemistry (sometime the polyps won't come out, sometimes it droops over) but its very resilient and sturdy. If you like the look of the xenia don't worry about it being a weed. While it may take off in some tank situations its fairly easily to control it you really want to get rid of it. I've had no luck with xenias - just not sure why.
Mushrooms are also good very colorful.
You can grow soft corals from frags really quickly so i would not invest big $ in a large colony. If you know local reef guys most of them will give away their softies frags.
Zoanthids and paly's do require adequate lighting so you may want to do that after you decide on your lighting situation.
Think about what types of reef you want to have eventually and i would recommend making an investment in the right lights so you don't have to replace it later. If you think you want a SPS dominant reef - you will require very strong lighting, for example.
I found this site to be a great resource for coral husbandry.
[URL]https://sites.google.com/a/asira.org/www2/caresheets
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