good beginner coral choices?

[evelyn80]

so today i did some research on good starter corals for my nano tank. i made a list of corals id like some past experince input and lighting requirements plz! here they are:

red/blue actinodiscus
green and blue rodatictis inchoata
tonga purple bulls eye rodactis inchoata
cladieela colt coral
metallic green star polyp
white dot green star polyp
neon eyed zoanthid polyp
green cat eye polyp
green button polyps
cinnamon polyps
kenya tree

ps i have 2 20 watt 5000k bulbs over my 10 gallon nano

 

[carolinyens]

Ok Im still doing research on starting a reef tank also. Plus I'd have to figure out a way to talk my gf into letting me have another tank. But I have bought 2 really helpful books. The first is Natural Reef Aquariums by John H. Tullock. That one pretty much gives you all the info you will need. The second is Corals:A quick reference guide by Julian Sprung. This one is just what it says. So if you already know the basics this is a good tool for actually selecting types of coral that will best be integrated into your tank. I know J.Sprung has a few books. I hope this helped some.

 

[evelyn80]

thx carol! ill look them up now

 

[fsn77]

Those corals are easily enough to start off with. However, be aware that colt coral and kenya trees can get very large in a relatively short period of time. They can require a good bit of fragging just for the sake of keeping them pruned.

For any of those corals to have decent color, I'd suggest getting at least 10,000K bulbs (even these will be quite white). 5,000K bulbs are going to be quite yellow and probably wash out the color of the corals. I can't say if two 20w bulbs will be enough for great sucess with the corals listed, but I'm sure some other nano keepers will chime in. I've never tried to keep corals under low wattage fluorescents, let alone in a 10g.

 

[jayghmi]

Another vote against the Kenya tree. I have a lot of water movement so mine doesn't get big but continuously throws off frags. It is like picking weeds out of your tank.

I keep my local fish store awash in pulsing hand xenia and kenya trees. I don't even ask for credit on the kenya trees - it is just the alternative of throwing them away.

The star polyps are taking over as well!