Good corals?

[adamlodge14]

My tank has been cycling for almost 2 months now, I have some softies in the tank already (zoas, Xenia, sinularia, mushroom)
I am going to make another coral purchase soon including some LPS.
I was thinking of getting a Duncan coral, torch, acan, alveopora and lobophyllia.
Thoughts on these corals?

 

[T-J]

Duncans are pretty bullet proof. I have a colony that was two small heads when I got it, and a year later I can't count the number of heads, plus all the new ones I find everytime I look at it.
I have some colonies of acans, and I find them pretty easy to care for as well. IMO, lobos are like the acans and duncans (I only have one). All of them require low to moderate flow and low to moderate lighting.
With LPS, you'll want to have a mature tank with decent lighting and flow. All of the ones I mentioned sit on the sandbed in my tank and have about 150 PAR.
Make sure you have some nitrates and phosphates in your water, and that they are balanced. You'll see many opinions on what those levels should be, but generally, nitrates around 10ish and phosphate around .03ish.

 

[burningmime]

The odd one out there is alveopora, which are supposably better than Goniopora, but still hard to take care of. I've not had them, but I'd stay away from those until your tank is more established.

Torches are pretty expensive right now and are susceptible to BJD. They also have slightly higher PAR requirements, which can be good or bad depending on your light (too much light on something like a lobophyllia will cause it to bleach). But I put a torch in my old tank as my first coral after zoanthids. I had to chop half of it off because it came with BJD. Do an iodine dip (really, you should do an iodine dip on all LPS). But the head that survived did really well, so they're not hard. And they look so awesome.

Acans/lobos are a favorite food for angelfish, so if you have a "reef safe with caution" fish, I'd avoid those. Otherwise, they're neat, and come in a huge variety of colors.

Really, just pick based on price, color, availability, and whatever you think looks cool. You can't go wrong with any of them.

 

[adamlodge14]

The odd one out there is alveopora, which are supposably better than Goniopora, but still hard to take care of. I've not had them, but I'd stay away from those until your tank is more established.

Torches are pretty expensive right now and are susceptible to BJD. They also have slightly higher PAR requirements, which can be good or bad depending on your light (too much light on something like a lobophyllia will cause it to bleach). But I put a torch in my old tank as my first coral after zoanthids. I had to chop half of it off because it came with BJD. Do an iodine dip (really, you should do an iodine dip on all LPS). But the head that survived did really well, so they're not hard. And they look so awesome.

Acans/lobos are a favorite food for angelfish, so if you have a "reef safe with caution" fish, I'd avoid those. Otherwise, they're neat, and come in a huge variety of colors.

Really, just pick based on price, color, availability, and whatever you think looks cool. You can't go wrong with any of them.

I’m thinking of picking up a nice orange/navy lobophyllia, a green acan, green/blue 5 head Duncan, Ricordea Yuma and I’m gonna have a go with an ultra green torch I found for £59.99
I will stay away from alveopora until my tank has matured