What's your favourite "beginner friendly" coral?

[AnnaG]

Looking for some intermediate ones but love corals that are still forgiving. Sorry but a little sick of hearing about mushrooms and leathers. What are your favourites? What was your first coral?

 

[MoshJosh]

I'm a beginner, and all my corals are too (at least I think so).

My first coral was a Kenya tree. . . then added pulsing xenia, green pavona, red scrolling monti, and a bubble coral.

The Kenya tree is cool. . . when it's happy, but it retracts sometimes for seemingly no reason (from my research it sounds like this isn't to uncommon).

Xenia is cool but grows super fast. . . will have to cut it soon.

the pavona and monti are awesome and I have enjoyed watching their growth, even in just the few months I've had them.

the bubble coral. . . I'm still figuring out.

 

[Miami Reef]

Large polyp stony corals and some types of small polyp stony corals.

 

[Duncan62]

Looking for some intermediate ones but love corals that are still forgiving. Sorry but a little sick of hearing about mushrooms and leathers. What are your favourites? What was your first coral?

Try acans. Lots of colors and some are pretty fast growers. My personal favorites are euphyllia. The paraancora hammers are a good start.

 

[blaxsun]

Green star polyps baby! Soylent Green!

 

[jp_75]

Duncan

 

[LeftyReefer]

I think digi's are great for beginner sps. mine have all been bulletproof. And you can get them in different colors, reds, greens, blue, etc..

The order I got corals in was
leather (free gift)
several euphyllia, got a hammer and a frogspawn, and a torch.
first SPS were monti's and digi's. (bubblegum digi etc..)
zoas

I still have every one of those first corals, not a single one died, so I'd say they were all good beginner corals. (hardy)

 

[fish farmer]

My first was anthelia, but had a brain and candy canes early on.

 

[davidcalgary29]

I'm here, once again, to plug Grube's Gorgonian. It's a great coral for most tanks, and is by far the easiest gorgonian to cultivate.

Fox corals and turbinaria (pagoda cup corals) are also severely underused.

 

[nereefpat]

Try acans. Lots of colors and some are pretty fast growers. My personal favorites are euphyllia. The paraancora hammers are a good start.

Acan lords (Micromussa now), branching hammer are great ones. I would add candycanes.

 

[John Bolden]

Rasta zoas are #1 for me grows great pretty cheap and pretty.

 

[Anemone_Fanatic]

You can't go wrong with neon green nephthea.

 

[vetteguy53081]

• Torch Coral
• Hammer Coral
• Blasto Coral
• Ricordia mushroom
• Birdsnest
• Zoas
• montipora
• Candy cane coral
• Palythoa
• toadstool leather
• Frogspawn
• Duncan coral
• GSP
• Xenia
• Mushrooms
• Feather dusters

 

[Theulli]

Xenia. I literally accidentally dropped my Xenia frag in the toilet, rinsed it in RO water, and it chugged along quite happily

my favorite easy corals by far though are zoas. You get good colors, they aren’t expensive, they are resilient, and man I swear you can watch the things growing.

 

[Scooters Reef]

Leptastrea and Leptoseris are both encrusters that do well and adapt to many types of systems/placement. Leptastrea has a bit fluffier polyps while Leptoseris has a thinner flesh but absolutely amazing patterns and coloring.
The countless variety of Mushrooms and ease of care really makes them an attractive starter coral. Rhodactis, Discosoma, Rhicordea, yuma... Within those species exist nearly any color or combination of colors and patterns that one could ask for.
If you're set on Mushroom and Leather specimens. I would try Blastomussa. Nice puffy polyps and a few varieties to choose from. Duncanopsammia, aka Duncans, is another hardy LPS that has big beautiful polyps and a nice colony structure/shape.
Chalices are also a good place to start with LPS. A ton of variety and types.

What type of tank are you running or setting up?

 

[shakacuz]

in my tank? definitely my garf bonsai. this thing has been through it all.
in general? a gsp of any morph..

 

[Idech]

I love my hammers, frog spawn and torch but they’re not as easy as other ones. Especially the frogspawn.

Some of my first corals were Duncans. One of them went from 1 head to 8 or 10 in 6 months. They grow fast, are hardy and cheap. And they like to eat !

 

[AnnaG]

Leptastrea and Leptoseris are both encrusters that do well and adapt to many types of systems/placement. Leptastrea has a bit fluffier polyps while Leptoseris has a thinner flesh but absolutely amazing patterns and coloring.
The countless variety of Mushrooms and ease of care really makes them an attractive starter coral. Rhodactis, Discosoma, Rhicordea, yuma... Within those species exist nearly any color or combination of colors and patterns that one could ask for.
If you're set on Mushroom and Leather specimens. I would try Blastomussa. Nice puffy polyps and a few varieties to choose from. Duncanopsammia, aka Duncans, is another hardy LPS that has big beautiful polyps and a nice colony structure/shape.
Chalices are also a good place to start with LPS. A ton of variety and types.

What type of tank are you running or setting up?

Ive moving from a 100 litre tank with a canister filter that ive had for a year, to a CADE 900 with a sump this time, and moving all my hard work establishing that good bacteria to the new one. I only kept one coral this whole time and my pair of clownfish died about 6 months ago Looking forward to adding some more corals and getting some fish. Had a lot of time to research.