My first Coral....What should it be?

In a about a month my tank will be settled from recent "problem fish" issues, so I plan to purchase my first coral. This is a whole new horizon for me so I'm looking for advice.

I have pretty good Actinic/PC Fluorescent lighting, and a fair range of currents from slower to fast moving. I plan to spend the next month absorbing all that I can about corals so it would be nice to have some specific varieties to look into. DFS has some beginner packs of corals.

Anyone have any thing about these?

 

I would start with red mushrooms and my favorite, Zoanthids ! Good luck !

 

The mushroom and soft coral packages are ok but no idea on the prices, I know I can find those type of corals locally cheaper but I don't know about you. Read up on them and see if you like them, if you don't no sense in getting them Polyps are another good coral along with what agansoo said. Little bit pricer but from what I've read blastomussa is good too, I'm going to get some in a couple months but their pretty expensive by me but supposedly can grow like crazy.

 

So far Ithink I like the Mushroom pack. I don't have much choice locally. They have their fist frag for sale. $30 for an incredbly tiny rock with a few heads poking out. It looked like it will be gorgeous someday but $30 for a 2 inch piece of rock is no good to me. The Package I want sounds like it is a bit more for your money.

 

O I have a store that has tons of corals, not necessarily cheap but you can get a lot and they are all healthy. They just don't sell small pieces, all their pieces are for larger tanks like yours so they are a bit more expensive. Mushrooms would be the easiest corals to get and take care of so that would be a good choice.

 

Gozer_1,
Are there any local reef clubs in your area ? They would sell small frags for cheap !

 

Gozer_1,
Are there any local reef clubs in your area ? They would sell small frags for cheap !

I highly doubt it. None that I have heard of. I live in a fairly small town. The nearest "city" is not so grand either. We have one pretty sad overpriced LFS, and the nearest "city" has 2 decent ones. Hard to make the 70 mile journey to see if they have anything I'm interested in. If I knew they had what I wanted it would be easier to justify. I'm bad about impulse buying so I don't want to get stuck looking at something "cool" and having to stop myself. Research first research first. That's what I have to repeat to myself every time I look in a petstore.
The Mushroom pack sounds perfect for me though. They all look nice and, with my lighting, will probably fair the best. 260 watts of Actinic and PC.

The Zoanthids are nasty poisonous thing has kind of spooked me a bit. They are beautiful though, and I do use large gloves in the tank.........hmmm

 

Gozer_1,
Are there any local reef clubs in your area ? They would sell small frags for cheap !

I highly doubt it. None that I have heard of. I live in a fairly small town. The nearest "city" is not so grand either. We have one pretty sad overpriced LFS, and the nearest "city" has 2 decent ones. Hard to make the 70 mile journey to see if they have anything I'm interested in. If I knew they had what I wanted it would be easier to justify. I'm bad about impulse buying so I don't want to get stuck looking at something "cool" and having to stop myself. Research first research first. That's what I have to repeat to myself every time I look in a petstore.
The Mushroom pack sounds perfect for me though. They all look nice and, with my lighting, will probably fair the best. 260 watts of Actinic and PC.

The Zoanthids are nasty poisonous thing has kind of spooked me a bit. They are beautiful though, and I do use large gloves in the tank.........hmmm

If you don't want the zoo's because of the poison thing you can try to get some look a like polyps. I want some zoo's bad, but I'm not sure if my mom will approve..............

O if you want a really easy coral yellow polyps, spread like crazy :;jk

 

I looked at Yellow Polyps, but I don't really want anything that "spread like crazy" lol
I'm pretty sure about the mushroom beginners pack from eTropicals. Sounds right up my alley. I really do like the ZOOs too though. Hmm yea mushrooms first lol

 

I want some of these ! ;D

 

ooOOoo Those are quite nice.

 

I want some of these ! ;D

O haven't seen those yet, gota check my lfs. My favorite zoos so far that I've seen are green one's

 

So, it's been a couple weeks now and I did some reading, and my water is fantastic and stable. Armed with my new knowledge, and good water I trekked to the LFS 70mI away to "see what they have". So I go straight to the Saltwater section and BAM! right in front of me is a nice rock with some purple mushrooms for $30. OH MY! But OOooOOO they have Green Star Polyps too. (reflect back to "spread like crazy" statement). They are so pretty and and and hardy, and and really pretty. In the end I decided I could deal with the issues of the Poylps and made one of my most informed, only slightly impulse, buys in this hobby yet. They are gorgeous. I got them a couple days ago and after 5 hours of slow drip acclimation they were out in the lunar lights within minutes of their addition to the tank. They seem to love their new home. May have to trim them in the future, but I'm ok with that. The mushrooms were very nice also, the swaying polyps had me mesmerized lol. I'll get some pics up later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice. I still plan to have some mushrooms but not till after I finish my refugium project.

 

Here they are. They really glow in the actinics.

 

Congratulations, I'm still on the hunt for gsp (green star polyps) myself. One of my lfs's has their whole back wall covered in these, might be something you might want to try eventually, that would be cool. do your mushrooms glow too?

 

I actually haven't picked up the mushrooms yet. It was a toss up between the two. I hope to pick up some mushrooms soon though. I'm trying to get a sump/fuge going and kind of need to focus my funds lol. I need a new stand to fit every thing under, blah blah blah. There seems to always be something else to add to the setup. Mostly I want to get my skimmer underneath. Silence will be golden. Going to build my own stand with sound board walls to quite my setup down. I have to turn off my skimmer to hear voices in movies. (More of a PS2 issue). Anyway, I plan to pick up some mushrooms in a couple weeks, maybe a month. It depends on how smooth my carpentry skills go. lol

The wall of Stars sounds really cool. I have a few lettuce coral skeletons that I plan to let it take over.

 

I actually haven't picked up the mushrooms yet. It was a toss up between the two. I hope to pick up some mushrooms soon though. I'm trying to get a sump/fuge going and kind of need to focus my funds lol. I need a new stand to fit every thing under, blah blah blah. There seems to always be something else to add to the setup. Mostly I want to get my skimmer underneath. Silence will be golden. Going to build my own stand with sound board walls to quite my setup down. I have to turn off my skimmer to hear voices in movies. (More of a PS2 issue). Anyway, I plan to pick up some mushrooms in a couple weeks, maybe a month. It depends on how smooth my carpentry skills go. lol

The wall of Stars sounds really cool. I have a few lettuce coral skeletons that I plan to let it take over.

O lol sounds like me, have to balance the funds. I'm not sure on the gsp's but I think it might take up to a month for them to be established and start spreading.

 

The front third of these had more of a brown color when I first got them.The browner polyps were smaller also. I put them in some good light and they are getting a good green color now and the smaller ones have caught up with the rest. I think I see a few tiny ones coming up from some of the purple that was already there. They are definitely happy.

On a similar note I picked up a small piece of live rock at the same time. It has a nice featherduster colony (10 or so) and a lot of purple Coraline. It turned out to be hitchhiker central. First I noticed some tiny bristle worms. They are the little "harmless" variety so I figured Oh well. The LFS I went to has had them for quite some time. I know they stay small. Second I found some pink crystal like things sticking out. Still clueless. Some of them bleached out after I got it. I also had some Grape Caluerpa pop out. I plucked it out. Hope it stays gone. I don't know how Algae goes sexual, I don't want to know, but I hear it's bad and I hear Caluerpa does it so "Bye Bye". I have also recently spotted a couple VERY tiny (1/8 X 1/16 inch) snails. The most interesting hitcher I mistook for more worms. They always stayed poking out of the rock like they had their heads buried in it. Always in 1 or 2 groups. They looked like black and white striped Bristle worms. Then yesterday I saw a group poking out of one area underneath. A little light and what to my wondering eyes........................... a VERY small Serpent Sea Star.............. 2............... maybe 3 of them. OH BOY. Not sure what I think about that yet. Anyway for 6 bucks I got a lot of life. For better or worse remains to be seen.

 

They are growing very well now. They have nearly cover the small rock they came on and are looking nice and green.

On a side note. The alleged star fish have yet to actually come out where I can see them. Come out come out where ever you are

 

Well after about 2 months the polyps have grown about an inch all around. The rock they came on is almost completely covered. They are a fast grower but so far so good.