Soft Coral Suggestions?

[atonaltheory]

I'm thinking about adding some new animals to my aquarium. Right now the tank is dominated by a giant Leather Coral and the rock and sand bed is covered with mushrooms (see profile photo - old but my two colonies are visible). It looks super nice but I would now like a bit more variety. I just switched from power compaq to T5 lighting (so much easier and cleaner - and no super hot bulky ballast) so I do realize I am limited in what I can keep. I've also heard, my leather coral presents growth problems in stony corals but it is just too big and beautiful so I don't want to part with it.

Suggestions?

 

[jarrod13]

I think some finger leathers would look nice in a tank like that. Also some of the photosynthetic gorgonians would be sweet.

 

[potterjon]

If you run carbon the leather really shouldn't be a problem. Lots of people run mixed reefs. I suggest hammers and torches. They give a lot of movement in a tank.

 

[Drae]

Add some lps. Frogspawn, a pink hammer, acans, cup corals, maybe some rics ( yes I know they're not lps). Options my friend. Options. Lol glwt

 

[sponger0]

How many bulbs in the fixture?

If its T5 and at least 4 bulbs, you can have any corals. LPS and SPS. Even anemones. So you arent limited with T5s.

But LPS would be a good place to look. Like duncans, torches, frogspawn, hammer, favia, meteor shower, acans. Those are all easy corals and will give you some variety.

 

[atonaltheory]

If you run carbon the leather really shouldn't be a problem. Lots of people run mixed reefs. I suggest hammers and torches. They give a lot of movement in a tank.

I do run carbon. However no LPS has ever thrived in this tank. In fact a portion of my live rock is comprised of the stony skeletons from past hammers and cup corals. I gotta believe it has something to do with my giant leather. Any other thoughts?

 

[Fizz71]

IMO acans provide the best color of all the low light corals. I also have duncans providing some nice movement in my low light region.

What are you Alk and CA levels at? You'll need some stability there for the LPSs.

There are also quite a variety of shrooms out there. I think I have at least 6 varieties in my tank right now. There are also some nice variety of Clavularia out there (pinks, purples and greens).