Beginner Coral

[wildechild_01]

Okay, so i've been doing a lot of reading up lately as i plan to set up a Marine Tank in the new year, the original plan was to go FOWLR and while it may be FOWLR for the first little while it is very apparent at this point that i'm going to be adding Corals. So I'm wondering what are some good corals to start with. The first fish to go in the tank are going to be a pair of Tank bred Clowns (side note, with a 100 US gallon tank will there be enough room for 2 pairs, diferent species/colouring) and as i know Anemones are quite difficult to maintain i was hoping to maybe provide a hardy soft coral that the clowns might be likely to host in (i have read they will do this) so yeah, just wondering what people recommend. Also I blame NEMO's signature Pic for making me want corals so bad.

EDIT - I currently have 2 4' T5HO lamps, not sure of K rating on them would have to check but feel free to recommend lighting requirements with corals, i plan on getting another 2 lamp T5HO fixture but was thinking i may go with a shorter one as i understand its possible to have too much light?

 

[-Nemo-]

haha

Even in a 100G, I wouldn't mix clowns, but how well clownfish get along together really depends very much on the individuals involved. Clownfish can be very vicious to each other.

As for hosting, many clowns (in particular tank bred ocellaris and perculas) will host just about anything. Mine currently host anthelia and others such as: xenia, long polyped toadstools, certain types of mushrooms like hairy, LPS like euphyllias or duncans.

Out of those, anthelia and xenia are generally extremely hardy and spread very quickly.

 

[wildechild_01]

Good to know with the clowns, i will probably just get the one Pair. I was just looking at the pinned thread on euphyllias and definitely think i want some of those

 

[simonas]

plus if you get one pair of clowns it releases space for different fish such as royal gramma, firefish etc

coral wise as mentioned you can;t really go wrong with xenia and it is a great looking coral. I;ve had success as a beginner with kenya tree coral, riccordeas and other mushrooms and a toadstool coral

 

[wildechild_01]

Yeah i'll end up with one pair of clowns, i just thought it would be neat to have a pair of orange and a pair of black, ha ha so now i have to decide what kind of clowns i want.. really i like most of them so it may depend on whats avail at the LFS's when i'm ready to buy. I definitely want some Firefish, i think i fell in love with them before the clowns, im not too sure on other stock yet, although i'm a Fan of some of the Foxface and Tangs... but still not 100% certain if im keeping my 80G tank or selling and upping to a 100-120G, and then will have to do a little more reading before deciding, there is so much research still to be done to make sure everything is going to be compatible, from fish, to corals, to CUC, but i am enjoying the adventure so far... im thinking i should start a Journal to ask all my different questions in rather than posting diff threads everywhere.. ha ha

 

[-Nemo-]

4 bulbs of t5 on a 100G would be nowhere near too much light. I would infact, recommend more if you want to do hard corals.

 

[demasonisrule]

Hmmm...let your tank mature and get some SPS..just kidding

As Nemo said you have enough light for just about anything. However, be sure to start anything at the bottom for a little while until it gets used to the intesity of your lights, and anything other than SPS should be fairly low in the tank. I recommend zoanthids, acans, bubbles can be hardy, mushrooms are probably the hardiest of them all, rics. Most LPS and softies are fairly easy to care for.