best low maintaince soft corals

[bmullikin1]

have 75g set up w 260w power lighting 50 artinic 50 10k what softies would be least amount of maintance, and not requiring direct feeding, have frogspawn,mushrooms currently, zoos are all washed out, kind of just brown now otherwise still opening and not dying off. same w zenia ok not great. shooms and frogspawn doing great. pictures and names would be great, not to up on names of all this stuff yet. fish pop includes 1 yell tang, 1coral beauty, 5 green chromies and 2 pecula clowns. ph 8.2 alk 10.5 calcium 400 all other values close to 0. thanks for any input.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Green Star Polyps. Though watch em, they'll spread fast!

[JamesJR]

I've found leathers, xenia, mushrooms and stuff like that to be a piece of cake.

[machinas]

Colt corals are also really easy, The grow quickly.

[flyguy7150]

i got a finger leather and a toadstool leather, 2 of my first corals. they're pretty hardy. Toadstool has grown big too in less than 2 weeks or so. Xenias are awesome, they opened up really fast in my tank. And they pulse which is cool, well mine do, some species dont.

[xtm]

whoa hold yer horses....

Originally posted by bmullikin1
have frogspawn,mushrooms currently, zoos are all washed out, kind of just brown now otherwise still opening and not dying off.

Something has to be off if you're having problems with these corals. Mushrooms, for example, is pretty much immortal and cannot be killed. How's your SG? How's your photoperiod? Your Temp?

Nothing is easier than the corals you've already mentioned. They are low-light, high-nutrient, low-maintenance, non-demanding corals.

I had a Rio 800 spew black tar all over my tank and the Mushrooms didn't care. I cut them up to pieces and they just multiplied.

[thecichlidpleco]

kenya tree, cut it, and watch it grow

[AMF]

OK you guys seem to know what your talking about soooo here is my prob.....I bought a 100 gal wet dry tank from a lady about 1 month ago....it has about 150 lbs or more of live rock this rock was covered with red mushrooms some of them would open up to a good 3 or 4 inches ...about a week ago they started to look shrivaled and didnt open up as nice. This week they seem to be even smaller. So here is the rundown on the tank: Same lights they came with the tank....Current , 65 watt dual Actinic 420/460nm,Dual daylight 6700k/10000k. The lights run Actinics 2 hrs in the mornning (just them) then the Actinics and Daylights for 8 hrs then the Actinics only for 2 hrs in the evening . The media is bio balls and a bag of carbon ...skimmer is airstone driven that came with the system . She had fish and I also have fish 1-blue tang, 1 Naso, 1 6line, 1 blenny, 2 red firefish, 15 hermit crabs.
Water readings this morning Salinity between 34/35, Gravity between 1.025/1.026, Ammonia 0, Nitrite & Nitrate 0, Phosphate 0, PH 8.3, Calcium 430. Water temp 77.9. Now the only thing that I can think of that might be different in the tank from when she had it is the carbon would that make that big of a diff? Please help .....Thank you

[Tahlequah]

If you want something big and showy you could try a kenya tree, they will grow pretty fast.

[njdevilsfan]

amf i lowered my salinity to 1.022
and my shrooms are spreading like crazy

[afelder]

GSP, toadstools and mushrooms

[AMF]

thanks but as far as the toadstool that was the first to die at the time my temp was at 80 and I think it was to high for it I am slowly dropping the temp to around 75 what do you think?

[kingfisher62]

Yellow polyps. I just had a tank crash from high temps while on vaca and those things still look incredibly healthy While my gsp's are still closed.
They are without a doubt the hardiest and most prolific coral in my tank. Here is a shot the first week and 3 months later.

[BHoffman_5]

I started out with small "frags". Mainly $5-10 mushrooms, zoas, and gsp's. Then tried finger leather which has grown well. I would say of the above listed corals would be good starters. The only problem with some of them (mushrooms, gsp, and sometimes zoas) is they can grow like weeds, but look good generally.

[trrack2far]

Originally posted by bmullikin1
have 75g set up w 260w power lighting 50 artinic 50 10k what softies would be least amount of maintance, and not requiring direct feeding, have frogspawn,mushrooms currently, zoos are all washed out, kind of just brown now otherwise still opening and not dying off. same w zenia ok not great. shooms and frogspawn doing great. pictures and names would be great, not to up on names of all this stuff yet. fish pop includes 1 yell tang, 1coral beauty, 5 green chromies and 2 pecula clowns. ph 8.2 alk 10.5 calcium 400 all other values close to 0. thanks for any input.

Im with xtm. The Corals you have now are some of the easiest to keep bar none. If they arent opeining and showing color, then somethingis wrong. Questions for ya.

* has the tank EVER had any copper in it? Copper is used in Ick medicaitons and will kill corals.

* how often have you done water changes? (I would suggest doing 25% now and 25% again in 2 weeks.

* what is your flow in the tank... I dont mean your return flow but
your circulation flow? Should be about 10x an hour.

* what type of filter are you using? Has your mechanical media been changed?

* Its fine to run Carbon but it also has to be changed every couple of weeks.

[AMF]

Thanks everyone , did a 25 % water change on friday and ran the AC all day and got the temp down tenp seems to be staying between 74 & 77 things are starting to look better again

[lavith]

Has anyone said Anthelia sp.?

[happyface888]

What are some suggestions for 50watt coralife PC's?

[xtm]

Hmm... just a thought- There could be something in your supply water. Do you use RO water or tap?

Also, how tall is your tank? You said you use 50/50 which is 10K and Actinic. IMO Actinic really doesn't "count" as a light source.. it's more of a 'supplemental' lighting for flourescence. On a 24" tall tank, that lighting is somewhat 'weak'. While these are low-light corals, remember that they are still photosynthetic and will definitely benefit from better lighting. I remember way back when I started I couldn't grow Xenia and GSPs in my 31" tall tank with PC's.

So that would be my suggestions. #1 Use RO water, #2 maybe update your lighting so it produces more usable PAR. also #3 continue running carbon to minimize allelopathy. Another idea is to move the corals higher on the rockwork so they can get more light.

[FishAreFriends2]

I have a 50g with what I think is a 96watt pc, my water quality is not top notch and kinda sucky. So can any corals handle something like that? Any tough and hardy corals that dont require a nice and prestine tank?

[kingfisher62]

you might be able to get some . I would start with some mushrooms first and see how they do. Do you have a lot of algae , Sometime that stuff can actually choke out corals.
What are your water parameters?