What corals to choose?

[aklaum]

Greetings noble sages,

I'm completely new to the world of reef keeping, no tank set up yet, zip. I have spent the past 5 months reading the top books (thank you Mr. Borneman, Mr. Calfo, Mr. Paletta) and researching online and I think I may be getting to the point where I am ready to start thinking about setting up a system.

One of the things I see over and over from those with great experience is the following:

"Tell us what kind of corals you want to keep first and then we will tell you what kind of lighting/water flow/feeding etc. you should have"

I think the challenge for someone like me is that it would be much easier to answer that question if I had been already keeping corals for years

So I totally buy into the sentiment and am trying to figure out how to go about it.

The other impression I am getting from those who know is that "garden" reefs are...challenging...a compromise...not the best possible care for all animals involved.

I get that too and am trying hard to ignore the fact that a large majority of "successful"/"featured"/"dream" systems seem to be squarely in the garden category.

So choose your animals before you build and garden is bad. Cool...I'm in.

So I'm gazing down at "Aquarium Corals - Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History" and thinking "Wow, that's a lot of corals, a lot of different directions to go, where do I start?"

So how does one start? Seems like the vast majority of people start the old fashioned way by just diving in, putting together a garden reef, having lots of failures, lots of death, learning on the fly. I'm not up for that, I don't have the time or money for that kind of thing. I want to do it right from the start. So I'm hoping for maybe a hint or two to get started or perhaps what one of the experts would choose when faced with a new system. Just to help narrow it down I have a few thoughts about what I am looking for out of the system:

1. I want the inhabitants to be beautiful and interesting.
2. I want them to be easy to medium in care requirements (I know this is a pretty subjective statement, I just don't want to flame out with my first coral)
3. I want them to be generally desireable and have resale value (i.e. after I propagate them).
4. I want the system to be practical and a good learning tool (i.e. this isn't in the middle of my living room so aesthetics are secondary to an optimum system for the corals)

Number 3 is because I want the hobby to be as self sustaining as possible and maybe someday in the far flung future even profitable (insert larger scale operation here).

To help narrow down the parameters even further here are some other things I can't, or don't want to easily change:

Tank: Standard undrilled 55 gallon (I already have two of them sitting here empty and can't afford yet another bigger tank right now)
Substrate: Southdown DSB (I have a considerable amount of Southdown already so this just makes sense)
Lighting: NO, Overdriven NO, or VHO (I don't want to deal with trying to produce "insane" amounts of light my first go round, love the idea of overdriven NOs but still deciding if it is workable for real)

Other than this I'm wide open to suggestions. What would you do?

I did thumb through the book I mentioned earlier (for about the 100th time) and I thought maybe I could have a lot of fun just focusing on nicely colored Corallimorphs and Zoanthids. Seems to be a lot of nice Ricordea and Actinodiscus out there that are desireable and could keep me busy. Zoanthids always look fun and it seems like they come up with some new Safecracker Pink Harpy People Eater with Furious Green Trim every other day.

What else then? Or is that more than enough? When does it become a "garden reef"? As soon as you compromise?

So lets say as an example I decide to populate the bottom third of my tank with various Actinodiscus species. How much light does that require? How many bulbs does that equal? Do I have to start talking PAR or can I estimate a little more broadly? If I get the right amount of light to the bottom third then how much light will there be in the top third? What can thrive there? The variables and choices seem almost endless to a beginner like me. Help?

 

[Anonymous]

Having dove in and failed I would say plan you system around what you want to keep. Softies and most LPS are easy to care for.

For your lift of questions.
1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Get what you like.
2. Leathers, mushrooms, zoanthids, most LPS fall in to the med to easy to care for range.
3 If you are looking for any resale value stay away from the generic mushroom and things like xenia and green star polyps.
4. Get the best gear you can aford the first time. It may seem like a lot up front, but if you do not you will replace the things you bought with better gear.

The 55 if not the best of tanks, IMO. Kind of narrow for the height. Seeing you have one it is a good place to start. For the lighting, I am partial to VHO for a lower light system. NO are not any good from any thing but mushrooms. If you over drive them you get a bit more light but a shorter life. If you want a DBS southdown is a good substrait.

I do not really know what you mean by garden reef. I keep what I like. Not really interested in a particual type of corals. For the lighting I would go with 4ea 48" VHO bulbs. I like to use 2ea actinic and 2ea 50/50. The bulb I prefer are the URI. For the things you want to keep you should not have any problems placing them anywhere in the tank.

HTH

 

[Meloco14]

Well, I won't be able to answer all your questions but hopefully I can help. First of all, it is fairly easy to have a successful coral reef when you seek out as much knowledge as possible, as you are doing. So you are off to a great start. Mushrooms and zooanthids are perfect beginner corals. You will be fine with PC, VHO, or HO lighting. You dont need a ton of water flow, and these corals are more tolerant of nutrient levels than many hard corals. One thing I should say from the start is you can't reasonably enter into this hobby expecting to break even or make money. You won't have a clue as to how expensive this hobby really is until 6 months to a year into it when you see the continuing costs of salt, bulbs, RO water, test kits, additives, electricity bill, etc. But this shouldnt stop you from wanting to propogate corals. Coral propogation is fairly easy to do on a small scale, and is very beneficial to the hobby. As a beginner, though, you will most likely have some of the most common, hardy corals. These corals do not have a lot of resale value, as everyone who has ever started a reef has had them. That said, there is a small group of ricordea and zooanthid die hards out there who absolutely love these corals, and there are many rare, beautiful, and expensive varieties. I don't really know where to go from here, but to answer your post title I think planning for mushrooms, zoo's, and ric's is a great idea. They are easy to moderate in terms of care requirements, lower light requirements, are commonly desirable, and have some resale value. And they are very easy to propogate. When I started my 55 gallon I had 4 NO bulbs, and it was fine for mushrooms. For propogation and flexibility I would recommend at least PC's or vho's though. T-5's are also a great way to go. With anything above NOs you will be able to keep more light demanding corals in the upper regions of the tank. Anyway, I hope this helps a bit. If you can, make posts with more specific questions that you have, that usually makes it easier to help, and you will get more accurate responses that way.