Good Starter Coral

[wburrick]

I Just set up my first saltwater tank. I'm waiting for it to cycle at the moment and I am curious as to what corals would be good beginner corals and also corals that will be good in a tank thats about 2 or 3 months old. I'm interested in soft corals because i know they are hardy and easy to keep. Also I wanted to know if all polyps act the same?

[wburrick]

I juat wanted to add that I will be using a h/o t5 2 bulb system in a 29 gallon tank.

[Chasman]

wburrick

I have a 29gal also I started just over a year ago. My first coral was a green star polyp. Still have it and it looks good. I also tried some Xenia which grows like weeds. Monthly I have to trim that out. That being said, you may want to stay away from that stuff. I have a small piece that I keep under control, but it can be a pain if it takes hold and likes your tank. Mushrooms do very well as do Zoa's. Tree corals are easy as well. I have one of those I put in at the start as well.

You should consider a bit more lighting though. Thirty inch fixtures are hard to get that fully illuminate the tank. Most have 24" lamps. I have attached a picture of the two Coralife 30" fixtures I use and they fit on a 29gal just right. The lamps in these fixtures are 27.5" long and really light up the tank for a very reasonable amount of money. So you end up with 4 t5 lamps. You can get these at Marine Depot or any of the other big supply sites. You can't do stoney corals but the softies do very well. If you look at a thread I posted a few days ago called "I'm still around" you can see the stuff in my tank.

Good luck with your tank and change the water often.

Chasman

[wburrick]

Thanks a lot chasman that was extremely helpful I've been going crazy thinking about light fixtures lately. I want to find one that i can recreate the sunrise and sunset with. Do your coral life lights have 2 separate cords for each bulb or are the bulbs dependent on each other?

[Chasman]

wburrick

They are two seperate lights. What I do is stager the lights by one hour to give some semblence of dawn and evening. Seams to work. Everything I've ever purchased is still alive!!!!

Chasman

[wburrick]

Chasman

Thanks for the input. I now know what light fixture I'm gonna buy. do you use all white lights or do you have 2 blue actinic and 2 whites?

[Chasman]

wburrick

They come with one of each. I arrange it so the two whites are in the middle when they are together. Hope that makes sense.

Chasman

[wburrick]

Yeah that makes sense and it seems like a great idea keeping all the strong lighting in the middle of the tank.

[Chasman]

wburrick

Since you are just getting started you will thank yourself ten times over if you add an auto top off system to your tank. This keeps the water very consistent in a small tank. Keeping up with evaporation for me was a pain, and the slainity would vary quite a bit. For about $50 to $60 you can make one. The picture attached is the kit I used. All you need in addition to this is a 5gal clean bucket and a pump. I use a Maxi-jet 600 in the bucket to pump the fresh water to the display tank. Google "aquahub" and you will see the kit and the how to pages as well. Very easy to put together, and works great.

Chasman