looking for a good starter

[TimH07]

im looking for advice on what a good starter coral would be (LPS or SPS)
so far i have 3 types of zoanthids, and i scored a frag with green star polyps.

my tank is at.
0 am
0 nit
20 ppm nitrate
400~410 ppm ca
12 dKH
8.2 ph
80F temp
1.023 sg (i need to get a refractometer, this hydrometer isnt accurate)

so whats a hardy coral for starters
also as the coral depletes the ca and dkh from the water whats a good source to replenish? will kalkwasser do both?



ps woohoo i got a peppermint shrimp, after acclimating, it hit the water nabbed the first aiptaisa it saw and ran to eat it so happy (i read its a coin toss as to weather one will eat them or not)


EDIT. also, the LFS has a small, little bigger than a golf ball in size, purple anemone (it resembles a bubble tipped but not inflated. they want 25 bux for it (new lfs in town and prices are insanely low and everything looks like a million bux)
i want to get one for my percula but im wary of this creature. not sure how big this one can get, i dont want it becoming like gene's amazing anemone tank and just havent researched it enough, what to feed it ect

[scubadude]

Uh oh....Tim is hewked!

Congrats on the peppermint, i usually never have luck w/them.

I would try and get your nitrates down a little bit more before going w/ some LPS or SPS even. Some good LPS are candy cane, torch, frogspawn....its a matter of preference though On most of them though leave plenty of room for sweeper tentacles that you wont even see come out usually until a good hour after lights out. You have the best asset to research corals @ your fingertips.....What I always did was check out online coral vendors and pics...and when I found a coral that looked cool I would research it online to the hilt....for example all you have to do is plug in blastomussa in the search engine here on reefland or google and you will get plenty of hits....That will keep you busy for HOURS!

Heres you a few pics to help you get started
blastomussa

galaxea

some torch frags


I prefer branching type LPS as they are easier to frag

and some hardy SPS are montipora digitata as starters or pocillapora

[TimH07]

thanks for the reply scuba. ive been looking at frogspawn, its a nice coral

my nitrate have been 20 ppm since i set the tank up, ugh. the hair algae has been winning the fight against the cheato, but the hermits are tearing up the hair algae now so with a few water changes and patience, i hope to bring it down (not too bad with tap as my source... i know i know i need ro/di but im not rich and ro/di units are to pricy near the holidays, and my lfs doesnt sell it)

some hardy SPS are montipora digitata as starters or pocillapora

those are what pop in my head first when i think coral, i love the branchy tree type corals the most. so nice.

[BinaryReefer]

As said above, corals do not tolerate high nitrates, nor do inverts. I would concentrate on bringing that down before anything else. Do you have any filter media (bio balls, LR rubble, etc) that is exposed to air that coule be becoming a nitrate factory?

Also, you should test your tap water for nitrates itself, there may be no way around it without enough denitrifiing bacteria to keep up.