Easy Corals?

[oli5]

Hi everyone, I was just wondering, are there corals out there that would last with a canister filter, protein skimmer, and powerheads. No refugium, sump, etc. Also, are there corals that don't need special feeding. I'm basically asking, what are the super easiest ones to keep that look sort of decent. Thanks.

 

[Myka]

Your lighting is the most important piece of equipment for corals. What do you have for lighting???

 

[oli5]

well I'm not too worried about lighting because if later on I decide to get some corals I will be purchasing the Tek-5 Sunlight Supply 4 or 6 bulb 54w system. But if I do purchase that, will I be able to have lots of corals without all the other equipment? And will I need to do special feeding? Thanks.

 

[davidhughes85]

thats enough filteration for whatever u want

 

[xenon]

You dont need a canister filter.

Your skimmer is all the mechanical filtration you need.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Most soft corals should do well. Mushrooms, Green Star Polyps, zoanthids, maybe some leathers.

 

[oli5]

Are they hard to feed? What do they eat?

 

[n8rad]

xenia are by far the easiest. You dont feed them because they use photosynthesis. Plus they dont need alot of light. i would recommend xenia for sure because they are super hardy and super cheap too.

 

[oli5]

So then if I have proper lighting, I can get most soft corals without having the excess equipment?

 

[n8rad]

ive virtually got the same system as you, and i have tons of soft corals. 3 kinds of Xenia, finger leather, cabbage leather, i also have 2 lps, frogspawn and torch coral. My lighting is the stock lighting that comes with AGA's and i also have 2 t5 39watt bulbs and thats it.

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

have to diasagree, xenia are not the easiest. They are not super hardy and if they don't like the water, they just melt away. They also appreciate medium to bright light. Not really a starter coral.
(yeah, if they are happy, it's off to the races though.)
Same with Anthelia...

IMO, the most durable coral out there are large zooanthids like the Protopalythoas and then the small zooanthus, followed as mentioned by other softies like from the gorgonian families or mushrooms.
I still have a rock of them from my earliest reef, actually one of the only two things I still have from from my original reef
(the other thing is a solitary non-photosynthetic stony coral polyp that came on a piece of LR. can you believe a STONY CORAL has also survived 18 odd years of my abuse )

They lived through several crashes, moves, tank changes, a poisoning incident and who knows what other horrible adventures.
They stayed closed for like a year after my first early horrible wipe which killed almost everything else, but they came back.

 

[supervdl]

leather corals, zoas and mushrooms are great starter corals and should do fine in your tank. Maybe an Open Brain later on.

 

[LockeOak]

If you're willing to spend about $60 you could make one of the modded Aquaclear 110 refugiums, it's a hang-on-back setup (no plumbing) and easily moveable. Just take the filter out of the box, one cut to shorten the intake tube, silicone in a couple of plexiglass baffles, toss in some chaeto and maybe some rubble LR and put a light over it. Pretty good nutrient export and pod breeding area for less than a cheap skimmer, plus it adds a bit of volume to the tank (nice if you're running a nano like me to keep parameters slightly more stable). Just a suggestion, I like mine.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

As long as you have good lighting, most corals do not need to be fed. The algae which lives inside their tissues (and given them color) use the light to photosynthesize, and the corals gain all the nutrition from that. There are of course exceptions, but most corals that we keep in our tanks do not need to be fed.