Rescue corals, ones that are a little cheaper because they are not in great shape, are not as prettily formed, etc....can be a good bargain for a starting tank.
Corals are really tougher than many fishes, in that when they're not happy---they expel the water they don't like, tuck down and refuse to come out. Fish have no such option.
I do suggest that you don't rush out and buy coral SO you can start perfecting your water qualilty. Do the water quality FIRST, test it, be sure of it, THEN go out and buy a 'starter' coral. AND find out the name and nature of it before you buy it, because corals have light requirements as well as water requirements. It also comes in stony, which requires a calcium supplementation, and softie, which usually finds water changes sufficient. Stony takes quite high light, as in metal halide, upper end T5 or reef-capable LED; softie is lower light.
What you have to look for is obvious damage, like jellification of an area on an lps---that's a disease that progresses: not a good buy. Or whiteness. A white coral is 'bleached,' meaning it has lost its zooxanthellae (zo-zan-THEL-ee) or the bacteria that photosynthesize its food...not good. They don't tend to recover. Brightwell is selling zooxanthellae in a bottle, but I'm not sanguine about the chances of it uptaking enough of the right kind to survive.
Skeletal damage is not that serious. A retracted candycane can spread out again over recent damage. Overgrowth with algae is not serious unless your tank tends to favor algae. If you have low phosphate, the algae will fade. IF it's buttons, you may want to gently try to wipe some of it off to let light get to the coral. An sps with white tips, not so easy to recover.
But in general the behavior of a coral in water and light it LIKES tends to be this: it expands one tentacle, one edge, to 'taste' the water, and slowly begins to get braver. THink of it as putting your toe in water to test the temperature.
The parameters i carry in my sig line are pretty good for lps, especially hammer and frog and candycane, pretty good for sps, and scarily encouraging for a lot of softies---I had to give up having any in the tank because they get way too happy and take over.
DO dip any coral you get, to kill pests, and always observe softies for a few days after dip, because the kind of things that prey on them lay eggs, that the dip doesn't kill. You may need a second dip with them once those hatch. Remember the mantra---things arrive on what they eat---and take precautions. Start any new coral on the bottom of your tank and move them up. It's good to maintain a collection of rock and coral rubble in your sump, so that when you get a new coral, you can glue it to a heavier, rougher rock bit that will help you place it temporarily upright in its new home, and move it easily as you determine how it likes your light and where it wants most to be.
Oh, and the 'not so pretty shape' deal? People ask us constantly to ID corals, but many, especially sps, can't be identified until you see their growth pattern, exactly how they branch and what shape they make. WHich is to say that the starting bit may be weird or crooked, but once it starts to form a colony, it will do what its inner template tells it to do and it will overgrow its crooked beginning to make a ball, or shelf, or multiple fingers, or whatever its kind does.
Once you do have corals growing, you can use THEM as an ongoing water test. If they're happy and out at full, things are pretty good. The day they don't look happy, run for the test kits and be prepared to fix the water situation. They actually make maintenance easier, because they don't lie. if they're not happy, something's not right.
Corals are really tougher than many fishes, in that when they're not happy---they expel the water they don't like, tuck down and refuse to come out. Fish have no such option.
I do suggest that you don't rush out and buy coral SO you can start perfecting your water qualilty. Do the water quality FIRST, test it, be sure of it, THEN go out and buy a 'starter' coral. AND find out the name and nature of it before you buy it, because corals have light requirements as well as water requirements. It also comes in stony, which requires a calcium supplementation, and softie, which usually finds water changes sufficient. Stony takes quite high light, as in metal halide, upper end T5 or reef-capable LED; softie is lower light.
What you have to look for is obvious damage, like jellification of an area on an lps---that's a disease that progresses: not a good buy. Or whiteness. A white coral is 'bleached,' meaning it has lost its zooxanthellae (zo-zan-THEL-ee) or the bacteria that photosynthesize its food...not good. They don't tend to recover. Brightwell is selling zooxanthellae in a bottle, but I'm not sanguine about the chances of it uptaking enough of the right kind to survive.
Skeletal damage is not that serious. A retracted candycane can spread out again over recent damage. Overgrowth with algae is not serious unless your tank tends to favor algae. If you have low phosphate, the algae will fade. IF it's buttons, you may want to gently try to wipe some of it off to let light get to the coral. An sps with white tips, not so easy to recover.
But in general the behavior of a coral in water and light it LIKES tends to be this: it expands one tentacle, one edge, to 'taste' the water, and slowly begins to get braver. THink of it as putting your toe in water to test the temperature.
The parameters i carry in my sig line are pretty good for lps, especially hammer and frog and candycane, pretty good for sps, and scarily encouraging for a lot of softies---I had to give up having any in the tank because they get way too happy and take over.
DO dip any coral you get, to kill pests, and always observe softies for a few days after dip, because the kind of things that prey on them lay eggs, that the dip doesn't kill. You may need a second dip with them once those hatch. Remember the mantra---things arrive on what they eat---and take precautions. Start any new coral on the bottom of your tank and move them up. It's good to maintain a collection of rock and coral rubble in your sump, so that when you get a new coral, you can glue it to a heavier, rougher rock bit that will help you place it temporarily upright in its new home, and move it easily as you determine how it likes your light and where it wants most to be.
Oh, and the 'not so pretty shape' deal? People ask us constantly to ID corals, but many, especially sps, can't be identified until you see their growth pattern, exactly how they branch and what shape they make. WHich is to say that the starting bit may be weird or crooked, but once it starts to form a colony, it will do what its inner template tells it to do and it will overgrow its crooked beginning to make a ball, or shelf, or multiple fingers, or whatever its kind does.
Once you do have corals growing, you can use THEM as an ongoing water test. If they're happy and out at full, things are pretty good. The day they don't look happy, run for the test kits and be prepared to fix the water situation. They actually make maintenance easier, because they don't lie. if they're not happy, something's not right.
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