First Corals… questions.

[PotatoPig]

I’ve been running a FOWLR for about 9 months and this last weekend I picked up a GSP frag from the LFS on an impulse as they had a $5 frag sale so am now dipping my toes into corals…

Currently it’s in my invert QT tank under a grow light and now I have a couple questions as I start down this journey.

1. I’m assuming All polyps open = Passably Happy With Conditions, is that a fair assessment?

2. My understanding is these things will pull their nutrients from the water? Is there any specific food I should put in for them or will they pull what they need from the food I’m putting in for the inverts (crabs, snails)?

 

[shadow_k]

Welcome to the coral word !
GSP is actually really easy to grow a lot of people have success and others don’t.

Polyps open means there happy/content

And yes they get there food from the water Column so the waste your fish produces (nitrates) will feed the GSP and other corals you may get down the line

 

[Budman93]

In my opinion GSP are super cool for beginners. Very colorful and easy to grow. They will love moderate flow. One piece of advice I will give you is to isolate them to a single rock not connected to anything else. Eventually they will spread over the entire rock and you will have a cool neon rock flowing in your tank. If you don't isolate them GSP can become a pain in the butt and take over your entire structure beating out other corals.

 

[PotatoPig]

Thank you both - the low difficulty reputation did factor in to trying this out, as well as the appearance - tank is a project with the kids so color and movement are definite positives. If this works out the next one planned is a Pulsing Xenia, for similar reasons.

Have a few weeks to work out exactly where to put it in the DT when ready. Current tank setup has two “islands” at each end (75 gallon) one of which might make a nice perch for it.

 

[littlefoxx]

I’ve been running a FOWLR for about 9 months and this last weekend I picked up a GSP frag from the LFS on an impulse as they had a $5 frag sale so am now dipping my toes into corals…

Currently it’s in my invert QT tank under a grow light and now I have a couple questions as I start down this journey.

1. I’m assuming All polyps open = Passably Happy With Conditions, is that a fair assessment?

2. My understanding is these things will pull their nutrients from the water? Is there any specific food I should put in for them or will they pull what they need from the food I’m putting in for the inverts (crabs, snails)?

Yes happy! And i feed my tank red sea AB+ coral supplement every day to be sure they get what they need. They love that stuff

 

[1112-425XL]

This was about the size of a quarter 18 mos. ago. Very low maintenance to this point, although it is about ready to be trimmed.