Corals to avoid/corals you regret?

[ca1ore]

Many commonly kept corals and inverts can cross from prized livestock to pests under the right conditions. For example, I will never again keep the BTA - just a large Majano to me. Xenia, clove polyps, green star polyps and mushrooms can all approach plague proportions. In my current system, green hairy mushrooms are my pennance. They grow everywhere and nothing eats them. I started out with one six years ago, and in a recent tank changeover eradicated over 200 of them .... and there were a 100 left. Deer, rats, cockroaches and green hairy mushrooms ....

 

[Dan Watson]

1) Kenya tree
2) Pink pom pom pulsing xenia
3) Green star polyp
4) most mushrooms
5) Green pocillipora specifically
6) some toadstools
^ invasive (but beginner)
v needy (amateur level or better)
1) meat corals and plate corals (delicate and easy to screw up)
2) NPS corals and critters
3) Long tentacle corals that can sting, theyll toast large sections of your reef (ex. galaxia)
4) Acros, dont try em if you dont know how to treat em (goes for all of these really)
5) Expensive corals: reason i say this is everyone makes mistakes and a $500 colony you grew worth over $1000 will turn into a rock overnight, often out of your power and control.
6) im forgetting a few so buyer beware. do your research before making any purchase. This isnt a perfect hobby and never will be, so prepare yourself adequately.

tank tax:

 

[Spottedreef69]

This is a great question.... and one that I spent more time thinking through. I have a 220 g TWV tank. My initial goal was to have it as a mixed reef... but with some nice SPS....and specifically nice acros.

The corals I regret are palys and fuzzy mushrooms. They have absolutely started to take off in my tank. The palys are a nice orange. I have tried nearly everything I can think of to eradicate them. My big fear is to cause a palytoxin issue.... poisoning the tank or myself. I wished I had never ever considered putting them in. I also have some smaller green palys that somehow came in as a hitchhiker. Palys will gain a foothold and start taking off in good reef conditions.

I mentioned green fuzzy mushrooms. I have literally hundreds of them. I have pulled, ripped, removed too many to count. They just grow right back. They are nice for a new tank to get some life in.... and get some color started.... but they again will take off in good reef conditions...and once they get a foothold, they are darn near impossible to eradicate.

One other coral families to be careful of are leathers. I had a huge population of Devils Paws in some of my tanks. In good condition...they will drop buds and reproduce like crazy. I have pulled, ripped and removed. If you leave some materials of foot...they will grow back. Interestingly... I also have some neon toadstools....that I have pulled, ripped and removed that have grown back from nothing now 4 times. I keep giving them away.... and they keep growing back.

I wish some of the acros.... had such a growth habit. Ugh!!!!

I'll take a neon toadstool lol

 

[Research Monkey]

Being new myself, its funny that GSP and Xenia keep popping up here and that they are probably the most pushed corals i've come across in my first dive into corals. Still think i'm going to get a GSP for my first coral with the intention that it'll stay on its own island. Or maybe i'll let it grow on the AIO wall. It seems easy enough to cut back from walls but not rock. I guess i'll skip on the xenia since it looks like it can detach itself and fly somewhere else.

 

[homer1475]

They are the pushed to newbies simply because they are the easiest, but they are also close to being the most invasive.