Best Coral for beginners?

Hey there, i have been keeping a fish only marine tank for a while now and would like to progress onto keeping corals.
I bought a piece of moon coral three weeks ago and it is doing great in my tank. My question to you is, are there any corals i should avoid? (please dont say moon coral!! LOL)
And what kind would you recommend for a beginner to corals?

 

Green star Polyp
Zoanthids

Avoid all other corals for now, see if you can get these corals to grow, if you can then you are doing something right and its time to start thinking about other corals.

What kind if lighting do you have? and what your water parameters, like Alkalinity, Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrates, Ammonia, Phosphates, Temperature, Ph, Salinity etc? What kind of protein skimmer do you have?


Dont put Xenia in a tank, it turn into a pest coral, unless you really like it

 

colcol
for a begginer to corals I would suggest anything from the following list

Green star polyps
Anthellia
Clove polyps
Zoanthids
Mushroom colonies
yellow polyps
toadstool corals
soft finger corals
mouse eared leather corals

once you have them under your belt and done some more research
Torch, hammer, frogspawn, bubble, fox , LPS corals are relatively easy

avoid anything that you cant identify

Steve

 

I would avoid any sps for now, gonipora, elegance corals and carnation corals. (These are all I can thin of at the moment)

Some great beginner corals are zoas, leathers, favia, acans, frogspawn and bubbles. I would avoid mushrooms and green star polyps unless you want them taking over your tank. Also avoid xenia or anthella (sp.?) for the same reason. It may be cool now, but it will take over your tank rather quickly and annoy you.

 

thanks for your replys guys,
Infamous i have two T5's and my parameters are as follows-salinity 1.025 p.h 8.2 nitrate 5 mg/l ammonia 0 mg/l phosphate 0 mg/l temp is 26c - not entierly sure about magnesium calcium or alkalinity! i will check these! my protien skimmer is the one that comes with the red sea max 130d tank!

Hey Steve, thanks for the list of corals, in your opinion was i hasty in buying the moon coral (favia)? it seems ok. Im doing my best to read up on corals so i dont make any silly mistakes on my part.

Guitarman89 thanks also for the list, it seems zoas, leathers, favia, acans, frogspawn and bubbles are the way to go!! cheers mate!

 

Do you know if you have T5 HO or T5? Consider getting Metal Halides, they're a big+ for a reef tank. How big is your tank?

Mine is 120 gallon and i have 2 x 250W 14000k double ended Phoenix Bulbs with reef optix pendant from reefgeek. I also have 4 x T5 HO actinics that i use to simulate sunrise and sunset.

Your water parameters are good. When keeping corals its important that you maintain proper Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium. These elements will keep your Ph from going out of balance. Get some test kits for these elements.

Your Alkalinity should be 7-9dKH (people have much higher dKH but i dont recommend that since its not withing natural reef parameters)

Calcium 350-450 ppm
Magnesium 1200-1350 ppm

You need to buy some dry materials and mix your solutions with RO/DI water to make the Calcium, Alk and Mg

Contact Bulk reef supply and they'll hook you up with a started kit and isntructions

Dont buy the liquids premixed, you are basically paying for water.

You also need to get a controller(if you havent already) to do most of the small jobs so you can focus on water quality.

 

Colcol
not at all you knew it was a Favia moon coral - Favia are relatively easy to keep according to many places ( just not a coral that come to my mind when asked about a list of beginers corals )

they are OK in moderate light / medium flow - but do appreciate feedings every so often
a squirt of mysis or brine shrimp when the feeder tentacles are out searching for food

my comment was not about this purchase, but about future purchases- always best to avoid impulse buys, only buy corals you have at least a little knowledge about as that means you would know if they are going to be OK in the set up you have.

Steve

 

Infamous as far as im aware they are just T5's not the T5 HO. My tank is the red sea max 130d, so its 130 litres, i will buy the test kits for magnesium and alkalinity i have calcium one. Thanks again for the advice mate.

Steve, i did read a bit before i bought it, i placed it on the sand so the light is not to strong for it and where i placed it has medium water flow. Funny you say that, i fed it the other night!! its tentacles were out and i squirted some brine over it!! (wasnt sure if what i did was ok!)
I will resist the temptation to impulse buy, although it is hard though! some of the corals are so stunning!! ha ha.

Thanks again mate!!