Help on choosing coral

killjoy391

i have a nano with a firefish and clownfish with plenty of live rock. the tanks been set up for about 10 months and seems to be doing fine. i was wondering wat would be some hardy and easily feed corals for someone with no experience with corals. my tank gets about 80 degrees in the summer and i dont have the money for a chiller. ive heard that this might be a little hot but would like another opinion. would these temperatures be too much for coral?

Melissa

well if you want corals you need to get rid of the starfish you have because he will eat them.

killjoy391

i know but i wasnt gonna get rid of him until i knew if i was gonna get coral or not

FaIIanAnJell

To answer your question 80 degrees is okay but try not to let it get over that. An inexpensive way to cool off the tank is aim a small fan at the water surface. As far as corals are concerned. You could check out Button Polyps, Mushrooms there are so many options out there for you just do some research check this site out http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/categ.cfm?pcatid=597 they will give you lighting/flow etc on every coral they have. But you will have to return the starfish as it will eat your corals as the other member said.

Ashlar

Ricordea are pretty temperature tolerant, as you see then in fairly shallow / warm water.

ziggy222

it would help if we knew just how low of lighting you have.if your using a normal phlorescent that came with a tropical fish tank,long term success with any coral that needs light is zero.you could have non-photo corals like some gorgonians,sun coral,any kind of dendros,but they are advanced corals that you will not enjoy attemting to keep alive.i have kept corals such as mushrooms,xenia ,andcabbage coral in as little as 2.8 watts per gallon of pwer compact lighting,but eventually they began to fade after about 8 months.

ziggy222

i forgot to mention.an ideal temp would be 77 degrees F but mines gets up to 82 degrees in the summer.

killjoy391

i have 3 watts per gallon. so thats not enough? would i be able to put stronger bulbs into my nano so that i would have a better chance of keeping them alive?

Melissa

your best choice would be mushrooms as they dont require strong light.

killjoy391

would i be askin to much if i tried polyps? i read about them and some of the button and colony polyps were said to be easy and needed medium lighting. would 36-40 watts be considered medium in a nano?