Coral Ideas and Suggestions

[SolusCado]

Hi everyone. I'm "fishing" (ha, ha) for coral ideas (and general opinions on my aquascape) for this rock layout. I recently rebuilt it to create all these shelves, so I could place corals at different light levels, and basically have a spot for anything I wanted to buy. But, now I'm struggling to decide what to get. What would you put (and where) in this tank?

PS. BTW, I'm loving the foam faux rock wall I have on the back of the tank. I know that it is something you see more in freshwater tanks, but I don't understand why. I can cut out little holes for frag plugs and basically add anything anywhere on that back wall. Why isn't it more popular among reefers?

 

[SchrutesReefs]

Loaded question, that appears to be a massive amount of real estate. Well done!

 

[Sharkbait19]

Looks like you’ve got lots of softies already, so I’d look into lps and polyp types.
I’d try for a zoa garden, lots of euphilia, some brain types, an elegance, and shrooms. Maybe an acro if your up to the challenge.
And a nem for the clowns!

 

[SolusCado]

Loaded question, that appears to be a massive amount of real estate. Well done!

Yeah; every time my LFS guy sees a photo of this tank his only comment is "that's a lot of room for corals!".

 

[SolusCado]

Looks like you’ve got lots of softies already, so I’d look into lps and polyp types.
I’d try for a zoa garden, lots of euphilia, some brain types, an elegance, and shrooms. Maybe an acro if your up to the challenge.
And a nem for the clowns!

So, everything?

I do have some pulsing Xenia "planted" on the back wall, which I'm hoping/expecting to pretty much cover the entire thing, but other than that there's just a Sarchophyton on the left and a Kenya Tree just off-center, as far as softies go. I have a couple Zoa colonies started already, and have been looking at more - but for the shelves in particular I kind of feel like it's a waste of space for Zoas. I'd rather see them grow up that branching stone on the far right, for example - where I can't imagine getting anything else to thrive.

I recently had a very large blue carpet nem fail to acclimate (just before I rebuilt this layout), and I'm still a little traumatized by it - but I'm hoping to try again in a few months, placing it UNDER some of the shelves.

Shrooms I'm curious about, as I feel like most of the time when I see them in other tanks, they just look like brown crap taking up space that COULD go to something more colorful - but then I'm thinking ricordias might be nice? Stuff like that though tends to require lower light, and these shelves are sitting at a minimum of about 150 PAR, moving up to around 200, 250, and at the very top around 350 - 400... way too bright for any shrooms I know of.

I've already had one bird's nest completely die off on me (though to be fair, I think that's because I basically crumbled it when trying to relocate it), but I'm still eager to TRY to get some branching SPS going... Perhaps once my plating Monti starts looking happy...

 

[mdb_talon]

Its all personal opinion, but if it were me I would start with some LPS (acans, chalices, blastos) and put on the bottom or lower shelves. Some Zoas in some medium shelves and could get some rocks for the bottom. Then as the tank matures I would start looking to fill in some of the medium and top shelves with more SPS>

 

[SolusCado]

Its all personal opinion, but if it were me I would start with some LPS (acans, chalices, blastos) and put on the bottom or lower shelves. Some Zoas in some medium shelves and could get some rocks for the bottom. Then as the tank matures I would start looking to fill in some of the medium and top shelves with more SPS>

You actually raise a good point... Starting at the bottom and moving my way up will also just help with getting to things. I already struggle to place or position things in the sand bed. I can only imagine how challenging that would be if there were a ton of SPS corals branching all over the place in the way!