Suggest some corals

[ltkenbo]

Hello, I am very new to corals as well as the saltwater tank hobby itself. I have a couple of soft corals in my 55 gallon but they are growing very very slowly and I'm guessing this is probably because my lighting is only 2 36" 2 bulb sunlight supply T5 fixtures which I staggered to be able to cover the 48" in. length of the tank. Anyways, I am planning on getting a 4 bulb 48" current fixture soon and I will use that along with one of my 36" fixtures giving me a little more than 300 watts of light. So, most of the corals I have now are quite dull and I would like some corals that would easily stand out and contrast with the purple coraline algae all over the live rocks, you know like maybe some bright greens, reds, blues, yellows. Nothing brown or peach colored though. So, open to some suggestions on corals. Some ones I had been looking at already were candy cane and zoanthids especially since zoanthids come in a lot of colors.

Here is my tank recently:

 

[SeaBee]

Zoanthids, come in all kinds of colors....green especially. Star polyps, leathers....A nice hammer or torch.

 

[Hiker4twenty]

Look into mushrooms and ricordeas. They come in all types of colors and are very hardy. They will also tollerate a little less lighting wattage as apposed to SPS corals. There are a lot of different LPS corals like frogspawn, candy canes, pagado corals, torch coral, duncans etc that will add some nice color. Take a look at the tank showcase threads to see other peoples tanks to get an idea of what the different corals are like and you'll see all the different colors and such. :twocents:

 

[dcantucson]

Here's a great site for Zoos and rics:

Coral Morphologic

 

[Bifferwine]

Zoanthids and mushrooms would be perfect. Check out some of these "starter packs":

Aquarium Coral Packs: Saltwater Aquarium Corals

 

[Melosu58]

Some brain corals would be nice

 

[parrotchute]

+1 on zoas for colors, but they often only color up well under quality t5's or greater.

What about some shrooms, they stay colorful and grow well in less than perfect lighting.

 

[ltkenbo]

Ok one thing I had a question about, was do most people start there tanks off with frags and then the corals grow to fill the aquarium? I mean I know that many soft corals grow quite quickly but what about stuff like frogspawn or candy cane corals?

 

[dcantucson]

Most start off with frags because larger colonies are just too expensive. Also it you have a loss then you haven't lost a fortune.

 

[Bifferwine]

Plus, it's cool to see them grow and reproduce in your tank. At least, it makes me feel as though I've accomplished something.

 

[Epos]

I'd throw in a few star polyp frags. They spread quickly, have a nice bright green color, do well under T5's, are quite hardy, and have a neat waving effect in the current.

 

[ltkenbo]

Yeah I actually have a star polyp frag from my friend but omg, they are growing so slowly, I think it's just because I don't have much light in my tank right now, they are healthy though. Will hopefully be getting more and better lights for Christmas.