List of corals for a 75 gallon reef?

[Sir Alex]

Can someone please give me a list of all the corals I need for a 75 gallon reef? I know it's optional but I don't know much about the different kinds of corals.

Details about me: I like zoas!

 

[Bifferwine]

Ummm... :)

Tough question. There aren't any specific corals you "need" for a reef. There are hundreds of different types of corals. You can have any combination of them in a reef tank.

There are 3 main types of corals:

Softies -- mushrooms, zoas, leathers
LPS -- most of the corals you see that have hard skeletons, but flesh that moves, hammer, frogspawn, torch, bubble, candy canes, blastos, duncans, sun corals, elegance, plate corals
SPS -- the corals that look like hard branches or plates, montipora, acropora, stylophora, pocillopora

SPS are the most challenging group to keep, and require the best lighting and water quality. LPS and softies are relatively easy to keep and are great for someone that is new to keeping corals.

 

[Sir Alex]

Well, I have plenty of time to research it (over a year). :wink:

 

[Sir Alex]

What do you think is a good corals per gallon to have a nice variety without them fighting? :question:

 

[Sir Alex]

Oops, I forgot that I already started a thread about that question...

 

[Sir Alex]

About 2 gallons per coral? This is interesting:

Coral per gallon

I don't want 100 corals (100 corals = $1000 +)... :shock:

 

[Bifferwine]

It will depend on the size of the corals. You can't really plan stuff like that, corals per gallon. That's impractical.

 

[reeftanker84]

yea not possible, to put in context one coral can be very large and down to a tiny 1/2" inch frag,most zoas will not fight so you can have alot of them without issues,the hard corals are very touchy and need space so they do not sting each other,best bet though is to read,read,read

 

[Sir Alex]

All corals have the potential to grow very large, right?

 

[Bifferwine]

Not all corals. Some are so slow growing that you may never see a change in their size!

 

[Sir Alex]

I was at a fish store today and they had an awesome 260 gallon display tank. It probably had about 40 corals in it. They were big though...

 

[Sir Alex]

The display tank was all sps which greatly inspired me. I want to do a ton of sps in my tank but from what I've heard, they can be quite difficult...

So I was wondering what is required to take care sps corals that isn't necessary with others. If I keep the nitrates at 0, calcium at 400 to 440, and magnesium between 1250 and 1350, and have 4.32 watts of t5 light per gallon, and have the tank circulating 25 times per hour, will the sps corals still be difficult?

 

[Sir Alex]

I've also heard they need a more mature tank than other corals. Why is that? So the P.H and stuff can stabilize?

 

[little_fish]

They need to water to be turned over close to 80 times per hour. They are like nems, where they need very stable water conditions and very low nutrients. Small changes effect them. These conditions, especially the low nutrients, are much harder to achieve in a new system.

 

[Sir Alex]

They need to water to be turned over close to 80 times per hour.

Is 65 enough? :shock:

 

[little_fish]

Ya, i think so! The hard part ive found with the high flow is getting high flow and not having a powerhead aimed directly at any one coral. But you will figure it out.

 

[Sir Alex]

I guess if I get soft corals and I don't like them I can sell them and get sps, If everything's going well...

 

[Sir Alex]

Hmm, I just did some research and found that a turnover of 40 is good for sps. I guess the more, the better?

Also the tank I saw was 260 gallons and it had two vortech powerheads. That's probably about 30 turnovers per hour including the return pump, and all the corals looked super healthy.

 

[little_fish]

IMO, more is better with the SPS, but if you want to do a mixed then of course it needs to be a little less. what you have planned sounds great.

Also, as you pointed out, its easy to trade out corals as your reef progresses! So dont worry about not being about to keep SPS right away.

 

[Sir Alex]

If I have it turning over 65 times per hour will that be too much for softies and lps?