Good Beginner Corals?????

[MSUschmidt]

Got a 75 Gallon that's got sand and salt water running. Going to buy my Live Rock one day this week, No hurry to rush the Cycle.

Haven't decided if I'm going to a Reef or FOWLR Tank yet. Have all the equipment and lights to do either.

What are some examples of Good Beginner Corals? Never done a Reef tank, just wanted to start reading into what the Good beginner corals would be if I went that route.

[Blown 346]

Beginner corasl would be softies.

Leathers
Mushrooms
Kenya tree
Zoos
Green star polyps

If you go to liveaquaria.com they have lists of beginner corals for you to look at with info on flow, placement, lighting and care. Those are the easiet to start with.

[bob1435]

Green Birds Nest
Purple Stylo

[thegrun]

Here is a good website listing easy to care for corals:http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/cor...5-Easy-Corals/

This one lists many of the common corals in the hobby and their care:
https://sites.google.com/a/asira.org/www2/caresheets

[MSUschmidt]

Thank you everyone, Nice to have lists to see what I could have and will do some reading while I'm about to start my cycle.

Not sure if I'm going to do a Reef tank or not, wanted to see what my options were if I chose to go that route.

[ReefReal.Com]

You can't go wrong with most soft corals, such as mushroom polyps, zoanthids/palys, Xenia, and Leathers

[Dustyboots]

Good luck with your tank!

[GroktheCube]

My first (non hitchhiker) corals were a favia, a favites, and a galaxea. I nearly killed all 3 on arrival with a contaminated QT tank. Almost a year later, all 3 are now at least 5x their original size.

Stylophora and seratiopora seem to be among the hardiest SPS corals.

Most photosynthetic softies are very easy, but most also have the potential to become invasive, and many secrete toxins that can harm other corals.

[rfgonzo]

Shroom's and GSP

[dppitone]

You can look it up also, by going to liveaquaria.com and browing thru their coral sections. Each coral has a page with a description and it will indicate "Care Level: Easy" for example, and you can focus on those. The ones that indicate "moderate" or "expert" would be for down the road.

[wrott]

Trachyphyllia radiata, branching frogspawn. I would avoid the "soft coral route" of reef keeping if I could do it over again. Mainly because softies seem to cause more problems than lps, sps or polys, like growing too fast, melting, chemotoxins:
from NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program
"Terpenoid Compounds

Soft corals generally compete with the hard corals by conducting chemical warfare; they release terpenoid or sarcophine compounds into the water to injure or impede the growth of neighboring corals. Like their name implies, these compounds are similar to turpentine in chemical structure and in most instances, are just as toxic. These chemicals also prevent other unwanted organisms from settling on or near the corals that produce them. [e] By releasing these compounds, the soft coral injures neighboring stony corals and can thus grow above them, eventually blocking out the light that they are both dependent upon and thereby killing the underlying hard coral. The process of influencing the growth and development of other organisms through use of chemical compounds is called 'allelopathy.' [h] Like their name implies, these compounds are similar to turpentine in chemical structure and in most instances, are just as toxic. These chemicals also prevent other unwanted organisms from settling on or near the corals that produce them."