coral sugestions for a coral newbe

[gorfre]

You do have a nice setup there. What are the water parameters? Do you add any sort of supplements?

If everything is in order, you shouldn't have trouble trying some of the hardier stony corals (or most soft corals). Things like most brain corals, bubble coral, hammer/torch/frogspawn coral, etc. would work well if the above conditions are met. You shouldn't be terribly limited at all in terms of what you can keep once you get some experience, either.

thanks but i wish it was as nice as some of the ones i see of like yours and dsr's . my tank, i hope , will get there.
recently i found this site as my last resort. i've had a never ending battle with hair and cyano for about a year. it started when i added 40 more lbs of rock. it was cured for 8 weeks . soon after adding it the algae went nuts. so bad that the front glass was cleaned in the evening and by the next morning covered with red slime. to make a long story short i posted my first question here about this and was given the best advice i ever got from toejam about my problem. over last weekend i started the process of cleaning all the rock and top layer of sand.
now the differance is beyond what i thought possibile.
my water specs are as follows
temp 79 deg
ph 8.3
salt 1.023
phos now at .03 and still falling huray
nitrate 0
amonia 0
nitrite .01
i dose a kalk mixture by drip into the sump. and the only other thing is a small bag of charcoal in the sump as well 10 gal water change biweekly.
so 2 weeks ago i had it.i was going to quit.it was so frustrating but now i'm on the right track and the differance in my tank is amazing.
i want beginer coral for the first ones because i want them to do well. i a little afraid i will kill them.

 

[Amphiprion]

The only thing I think you should change would be to raise your salinity slightly. Natural seawater sits at 1.0264 @ 77 F. Try to ballpark that. Beyond that, those corals I listed should do just fine for you. Also look into candy cane/trumpet coral as another good beginner stony coral. Again, most of the soft corals, such as leathers, etc. would do just fine. Many types of polyps will also do fine, such as zoanthids, mushrooms, and the like.

 

[gorfre]

thank you amph
i will bring it to 1.026 slowly before i add coral. also looking at your tank you list you use tunze pumps. why are they so expensive? are they really that much better?

 

[Amphiprion]

I have been very happy with my Tunze pumps. I have one of the larger models that I am pleased with, but I won't pay that much for another one. The best things about them are their energy efficiency, their durability/craftsmanship, and their customer service. The latter is second to none. That being said, they are just one way to accomplish a means, not the only. The price primarily comes from importation from Germany

 

[gorfre]

thanks amph
on monday i'm going to order a few gobies, more clean up crew and a few zoas plus maybe a few mushrooms. when they are in place i will post some pics. do i just click on the insert image icon to post?
thanks very much for your advice

 

[Amphiprion]

I like to use an image hosting site, like photobucket. You upload the images on there and then take the URL and wrap it in

, and voila. You have a picture.

 

[gorfre]

hi guys
well i just placed an order with jl aquatics for my first coral for shipment on monday and can you tell me is there anything i need to do to mount them in my tank like rock or on the sand? i really don't know.
thanks

 

[Amphiprion]

Tons of options here, all depending upon the type of coral(s) you are getting.

 

[DSR]

what did ya get?

 

[gorfre]

sorry guys i bought a large neon green button polyp zoa