care level for coral

easy,moderate and expert... what does that mean exactly?
when i look at corals online, and the care level reads easy, moderate or expert are they talking about stability or water quality?

 

Basically its how difficult it will be to grow them..But honestly, i have had a few expert corals and fish and as long as you have the right lighting,flow and stability nothing is that hard to keep.

Easy corals being Zoas,palys,green star polyp
Moderate being a few LPS, and SPS such as monti caps.
Expert being most SPS corals and maybe a few LPS.

 

And some of them because they require frequent feeding and attention and not because of water quality and stability.

I'd guess many of them get the recommendation because you really need to know what you are doing with them, whatever that may be, water quality or care. Too many people (myself included;D) see something pretty and say "ooo i need that" buy it and THEN read about it. Hopefully that expert rating makes people read about it FIRST then think about buying it.

Unfortunately not enough stuff is rated expert... But then again that wouldn't stop a lot of people anyway..

 

The designations apply to the amount of specialized care, dosing, feeding and quality of water required to keep the coral healthy.

 

They can be misleading, I think they often provide the level of care based on the expected environment. For example, some macro algae, may be listed as easy, and it may be in a nutrient rich aquarium, but may be nearly impossible, in a low nutrient SPS system. Same could go for some non-photosynthetic corals. In some may be easy, in a non-photosyntetic dominated system, compared to the other NPS corals, but nearly impossible in a typical mixed reef. You really need to research each corals requirement and decide how much extra work it would be in your system.

 

i understand what you are saying, but why would one acro be classified as moderate and another kind of acro be classified as expert? both require high lighting, high alternating flow...stable alk, cal and mag in proper range, stable temp in proper range...
now the feeding part, how do you know if sps corals need to be fed? do sps eat phytoplankton or zooplankton?

 

Some acros are more susceptible to parameter fluctuations than others and need extremely high light. SPS normally eat zooplankton although some eat phytoplankton. SPS can do without being fed unless you run an ultra low nutrient system. Most feed their SPS once or twice a week.

 

Wild colony acropora are usually considered expert. Some are very hard to keep. I steer clear of the wild pieces when I can. I find the aquacultured frags grow faster, maintain color, and are hardier.