want some colors

My tank is a year old and all i have added into it is fish and live rock because i had never done a fishtank before. i think i am ready for some cool looking corals but i have a fairly basic set up. what are the best corals to start off with for someone who has never done them before? i have a 30 gallon tank with one power head for circulation and one light (8,000k full spectrum daylight bulb) any information on upgrades i need to make or hardy crals would be greatly appreciated. thank you

 

upgrade the lights first, then add some powerheads, then try some mushrooms, kenya trees, and xenia, maybe some basic palys!

if you can do it yourself, ya can prob get a led system from ocreef for $175 or so!

or look into some of the basic T5 lights! remmeber though, once you start into corals, you're prob gonna go the whole way, so save up and get a good light system that will cover the "future" of your most wildest dreams!

 

well thank you i plan on upgrading in the future but for now is there any corals i can get that can grow with just a stronger light than the one i have in?

 

Zoo Med AquaSun T-5 HO Double Light Linear Fluorescent Hood at PETCO

getting something like this is more reasonable for me. would it work to use something like this and just put 1 bulb for corals and the other bulb could just be like the one i have now?

 

You'd want to upgrade the lights first it really will be your best bet. Hit the ebay you can pick up a 2 or (preferably) 4 bulbs odyssea light for pretty cheap. From there I would say take a look at some ricordea and some zoa's. You can get zoa's / paly's in all kinds of colors and they are good beginner corals. They are easier on water quality issues as well. I havent gotten into higher end zoa's yet, but I have some nuclear green paly's that are pretty cheap and grow really quick, I have been really happy with them especially. I about a month & a half my main frag grew quick enough that they went over the edges of the plug and are now growing onto my frag rack.

 

+1 on picking up a t-5 fixture. LED's can make coral GLOW, but t-5 is a great place to start IMO. Best case scenario, start with T-5 and once you get a few specimens, you can supplement with LED.

The first coral I started with was Zoanthids. Zoas are one of my favorite corals. They are very pretty, relatively hardy, and they grow pretty fast. My favorite part of owning Zoas is buying them very small (around 5 heads) and counting as they grow. At some point you just can't count the heads.

But thats where the addiction starts. You start with a Red Zoa, then you need green, then you start seeing pointy sticks that would look killer...

Best of Luck!

 

thanks for all the help i found this one that looks pretty solid but could use some input on the quality/reliability of the brand and if this would be good for a starter.

Odyssea Metal Halide System

 

Well said my friend, well said.

I started with the traditional dragon eyes, watermelons & yellow polypls. Then I stepped up to some armor of god paly's & the nuc greens. Now I been looking at purple people eaters, sunny d's, darth mauls, etc.

Zoa's are the first step in a legal addiction. lol.

 

I got this one below, works great for me. Don't have any corals yet, but I plan to here in the near future.

Odyssea T5 Aquarium Lighting

 

I will say something before the lighting experts start shooting at me. Lighting is what you pay for. There are alot of top end lights out there that will outperform this light and give you alot of bang for the buck. For a person just starting and on a budget there is nothing wrong with an oddysea fixture imo. Especially people with smaller tanks, cause after your first tank, all you want is a bigger one. You can save the money you would spend on a cheaper light now for a bigger and better tank light further down the road.

Yup, the link you posted are your traditional odyssea style lights. My personally I would probably go with a 4 x t5 model over MH's in a smaller tank, but that is just my choice. From what I have read MH lighting can add to alot of heat & evaporation on smaller tanks. At that size I just beleive T5 are more efficeient, although a MH light would allow you to certainly keep any kind of coral you want from zoa's to SPS.

Aquatraders (the link you provided), is a very shady & known to have problems company. Not with the lights the lights are built in china or korea or something, and are the same light youll buy from ebay or any other number of places. Aquatraders as a business is known to have problems, run a search on here or google and youll see what I mean. I think we lost track of the number of BBB compaints filed against them. AquaCON has cornered the market of bad business with livestock & aquatraders is working on the title with hardware.

Like mentioned there are quite a few ebay sellers that sell the light and probably for alot cheaper too. I have 2 oddysea lights purchased from bigdogseller on ebay & both were shipped all but same day & arrived in perfect condition.