Clams are so under rated, they truly aren’t that hard to keep if your lightings strong enough and most people on the hobby with new enough LEDs can keep pretty much anything Also euphylia are such awesome intermediate corals
So accurate on Goni I had one that was thriving and growing for 6 months, 1 day they weren’t as extended and 2 weeks later dead. Nothing changed with the tank at all and levels were always perfect. Baffles me to this day
Duncans also offer the grotesque experience of anemone feeding. I feed mine a small piece of shrimp and it looks so damn alien how it engulfs the small piece and then goes back to its size
A guy at the pet store told me this coral right here is super aggressive I was like.... How? He said it's like a deathrap that lures in its prey.... I was like sounds like my ex girlfriend
I literally just want a tank full of pulsing xenia, 2 clownfish, and a cleaner shrimp haha, but i do want to definitely make sure and the way you talk about some of these corals might make me add something else haha
I wish people would watch the tips and points Alex has, I don't see you all slanging BRS TV off all the time ! Try making your own UA-cam videos and see how many people watch you ! Good points Alex once again. Thanks. A few more I would of added. 👍👍
Sun corals are easy if you put them in the right spot. Florida ricordea is not a mushroom, its a form of anemone. Goni's are generally thought of as easier than alvis. Torches can go next to other torches and euphilias as long as skeleton doesn't touch. Hammer corals in general are alot cheaper than torches
It's ulva - it's a nightmare in a small tank. Really hard to get rid of and takes over corals. Tangs love it though so something like a zebrasoma would sort it. Apparently walruses eat it too!
I started dosing all for reef a few weeks ago and wanted to also dose kalkwasser but was told I'd be overdosing alkalinity which would have a detrimental effect?
You'll only overdose alkalinity if you add more than your tank uses so just dose less. Probably best to dose one or the other and not both unless you have loads of corals.
No, not necessarily. You can get some great corals for not a lot of money and softies won't be expensive to maintain. Buying from other hobbyists helps with cost. It can be very expensive though - especially with higher end SPS corals like acropora that need more light, flow, a source of alkalinity, calcium etc.
The one thing that I can’t seem to keep for any amount of time is Zoas 😩 yet corals like hammers and mushrooms, Acans and Duncan’s grow really well, what do you think about bubble scrubbing ? Some say it’s good for removing unwanted slime from some corals ?
I've never tried bubble scrubbing - Aaron's Aquarium has done a video on it though. Shot in the dark, but zoas need iodine which is often too low in aquariums. Might be worth adding the occasional drop of Lugols.
Glad the elephant ear is on that list! Awful coral. Honestly I don't know why fish shops sell them especially because in my experience a few fish shops including MHAquatics consider them "just a mushroom" not knowing themselves that they are a clown eating mushroom and sell them to people with clowns!! Shocking. Nice one for making people aware of this one. 👍🏼😊
My Gonipora were looking bad till I let the nutrients go a bit higher. If you keep a near 0 nitrate level in your tank you will need to do a lot of spot feeding. Also, avoid small frags of Goni… they are way more sensitive to algae build up, while larger frags will survive and eventually thrive as long as you keep them toward the bottom of the tank.
My Elegance coral absolutely love them and it in a corner on the sand not a problem all out tentacles the lot then for no reason after about 6-months it's half the size have moved it all around the tank to no avail I know it's just going to die on me and it was over £100 any ideas would be appreciated
My torch, suncoral, hammer and spawn all doing very well and they open up beautifully very day . In the evening when all light off. My sun corals will open up beautifully.
I have the worst luck with clams. My SPS do great, but my clams always wither within a few weeks. I just can't seem to find a spot with high enough light, and low enough flow for them to be comfortable.
Alkalinity all the time, calcium when I can be arsed, phosphate occasionally (although I should test more) and nitrate whenever I test phosphate. Occasionally salinity too, just to be sure.
In my first tank, I got a Goni as one of my first corals. It's been a year and a half and it's the only coral I've never had an issue with! It's so funny how different corals can react to different systems - I can't for the life of me keep a cyphastrea, and everyone else seems to have no issues with them!
I love gono's and have owned around 4 and only one has made it up to a year so far! I dont know why this one has made it probably because it was the least colorful..lol and the one I like the least! . It never fully extends though! Funny thing is today I unpluged the wavemaker for a while and forgot to plug back in and it extended more than I have ever seen! Guess I have been giving him to much flow! I wont stop though! I am bidding on one tonight from unique corals! I have seen some people with them so extended and beautiful that they look like torches! Hopefully the one I am bidding on will be the ticket! LOL> Its free shipping and bid is only at .99 cent right now so maybe I wll get lucky. Free shipping is because I placed an order already off their website that qualified me for free shipping and allows me to get in their ebay auctions! I also have credit from them as well because I won first prize on a live sale! It was originally 800.00. I love unique corals!
@@lonestarpatriot876 That is an amazing price Travis - here in the UK the local fish shops near to where i live sell these wonderful corals in excess of £20 per mouth ( $26+)
@@bongosreef9406 Got it at one of my local LFS shops that is run by reefers. They always have them at that price. With that said, I normally see them at other LFS shops near me for $30.
my top 5 corals I regret buying would be 1 Acropora I don't know but I just can't keep them alive however millepora does great in my tank. 2 would be torch corals and hammers I don't know why but I always end up after 2 weeks with brown jelly disease I recently tried to make a bubble coral garden and that worked out for me. 3 would be Zoas they always do good for to first 2 weeks and then they close and never open again and just end up passing away however palythoa do fine for me same shape and sadly they have fewer color variants. 4 would be clove polyps they just end up melting away in my tank in a couple of days Xenia just works fine for me and it just adds the same movement to the tank and 5 would be anemones they always move to a dark spot in my tank shrink up and die a great alternative for them would be hellofungia they still at the same look as a nem and people still mistake them for a nem and they don't move at all downside is I would not recommend placing them on a rock because they need low par levels and low to medium flow.
For me, my fat head dendro is the most unique coral and my fav, and def worth a couple time a week spot feeding. it eats mysis quickly so you dont have to be there for hours feeding it or need a drinks bottle.
Only thing I'd add is becare if u have shrimp tho! They tend to rip apart sun n denro corals when they are fed. So might still need a cover of some sort. Bottle top or basket from fruit in grocery stores. Lol just my 2cents
@@jaysreef5721 yes quite true. Wrasses as well sometimes try steal food from their mouths too. This is one reason i no longer keep shrimp lol. They make it too hard to feel corals : )
Yea agreed. I like watching a cleaner shrimp on tangs n such tho lol. Currently I only have peppermints. Kinda wish my lobster would turn into the shrimp eating demon folks say lol. Had the reef lobster for years now n still 5 mints lol. Never know I may try dendros in the nem tank tho...
Most people may think what I’m about to say is blasphemy but I don’t really recommend the zoanthids to beginners. They can take up a lot of room and grow pretty quick sometimes and if you don’t properly remove or frag them, their toxins can poison and kill some other corals. I wouldn’t try to keep them until they’ve got some more experience under their belt with maintaining good water conditions and fragging other corals but once they get the hang of it, zoas shouldn’t be a problem to deal with.
I have had my GSP for over a year now. You want to know how much it has grown? Brace yourself for this: ……. … It has grown from 4 polyp to 6 polyps. So yeah. Kinda glad GSP didn't make this list as I did not have the problem that I usually hear about concerning their apocalyptic levels of growth. Also, I love duncans. Mine went from 2 heads to about 15 over the past year. Nice and fat, and will readily eat fish pellets, lps pellets, mysis, and basically anything else. As for ricordeas…. Despite all my discosomas and rhodactis shrooms thriving and getting fairly sizeable and reproducing, ricordeas never do well. More specifically they seem to be suicidal as they unglue themselves, wind up in a spot with zero light and die, or get sucked into the overflow and die, or land on one of my aussie lords and get devoured...and die. On the plus side, at lest my Aussie Lords have established dominance over the rest of the tank lol
Weird as I have no problem with my Florida Ricordia at all. The behavior you described sounds like a Ricordia that is trying to escape too bright of light. Mine has never moved and looks great. It is in partial shade under an overhang at the bottom of my tank.
sun corals look better than duncans, find a orange duncan then maybe, and "florida ricordea" is kinda wrong or not totally correct, Ricordea florida are the genus species name, and till here i have never heard anyone reverse such,
elephant ear Nemo predator ? Excellent for me Nemo bites me all the time And they push coral that I put in the bottom of the riff And attack every new coral I put into the riff They are cute but I hate them
I have never had clowns attack corals. The only time I have seen clowns nip at a coral is in tanks where the tank is under fed. If they are fed correctly, they will never touch your corals. With that said, some will nip at you if you stick your hands in the tank.
@@lonestarpatriot876 I have a problem with 0 phosphate So I feed about twice as much food so The phosphate should rise above 0 With no success for 4 months the phosphate is still 0 They do not eat the new coral just attack them And their bites hurt And most annoyingly they push lps Away from the light
Something is wrong if you can't keep zoas alive in your tank. Perhaps you are placing them in too high or too low of light or something is off with your water paramaters.
@@metalldanny aye your the first person to actually give me advice. I tested it and its mad low.. will place order for fritz rpm and that has iodine in it and other trace elements. Thanks alot!!!
What????? WALL HAMMERS ARE ON THE LIST???? MY GOD THEY LOOK TOO GOOD. branching is awesome as well but much uglier imo. I don’t own a wall hammer colony yet only branching
While I do agree, I just can't resist walling Euphyllia. I just find them so much more beautiful than the branching varieties, especially when it comes to hammers. There a more colour varieties, and I love the big round anchor / horseshoe shaped tentacles compared to the smaller and less defined tips that branching ones tend to have. A large, colourful walling colony just looks absolutely incredible in my opinion. My Neon Green Indo wall hammer is my pride and joy. I've never found that wall hammers are any more sensitive or prone to ailments than branching hammers, the problem is that as you say, once they start to recede for whatever reason, they're incredibly hard to save, and since Euphyllia are one of the corals most prone to bacterial infections and things like brown jelly disease, I definitely understand why most people don't find them worth the risk, especially given the hefty price tag.
Clams are such a great thing to have in the tank. Its cool seeing other people starting to bring it up.
Another alternative to the Christmas tree worm is the feather duster worm, they’ve been thriving in my tank for a long time now!
“Ball ache” that’s a new one lmao
Pain in the derrière haha
The accent. It’s amazing
🤣
Clams are so under rated, they truly aren’t that hard to keep if your lightings strong enough and most people on the hobby with new enough LEDs can keep pretty much anything
Also euphylia are such awesome intermediate corals
So accurate on Goni I had one that was thriving and growing for 6 months, 1 day they weren’t as extended and 2 weeks later dead. Nothing changed with the tank at all and levels were always perfect. Baffles me to this day
Kenya tree is a double edge sword. They multiply fast and drop frags where they feel like it
Great vid as per short sharp and informative you are fast becoming my favourite you tuber keep up the good work sir 👍🏻
Thanks man, appreciate it 🙂
I didn’t realize I wasn’t subscribed. I love your videos!! Keep it up :)
Duncans also offer the grotesque experience of anemone feeding. I feed mine a small piece of shrimp and it looks so damn alien how it engulfs the small piece and then goes back to its size
I never spot feed Duncan’s, I feed some mysis with the pumps on and they always seem to get something lol
A guy at the pet store told me this coral right here is super aggressive I was like.... How? He said it's like a deathrap that lures in its prey.... I was like sounds like my ex girlfriend
Just a note with torch corals, they can touch other torch corals
Yea, I love tourch corals and I have a whole garden of them.
I literally just want a tank full of pulsing xenia, 2 clownfish, and a cleaner shrimp haha, but i do want to definitely make sure and the way you talk about some of these corals might make me add something else haha
Great videos love the way you keep it simple and clear keep up the great work
you give such great advice 👍
Love the clam this is on my list of do's great tips of what not to get thanks :) :)
Great vid! Another good alternative to an elephant ear would be a fox Cora! They’re one of my favs!
Great shout 👍
I'm enjoying your videos. Keep up the good work!!!!
I loved my deresa clam. I haven't had issues with corals but I did have an issue with a peppermint shrimp it started attacking my BTA so it had to go.
I wish people would watch the tips and points Alex has, I don't see you all slanging BRS TV off all the time ! Try making your own UA-cam videos and see how many people watch you ! Good points Alex once again. Thanks. A few more I would of added. 👍👍
Sun corals are easy if you put them in the right spot. Florida ricordea is not a mushroom, its a form of anemone. Goni's are generally thought of as easier than alvis. Torches can go next to other torches and euphilias as long as skeleton doesn't touch. Hammer corals in general are alot cheaper than torches
What type of algae is on 3:22? I have a similar type in my tank and can't seem to ID it online!
It's ulva - it's a nightmare in a small tank. Really hard to get rid of and takes over corals. Tangs love it though so something like a zebrasoma would sort it. Apparently walruses eat it too!
Love your info but damn your wallpaper drives me crazy!!
A coral I regret, not because of difficulty, is pulsing Xenia. Been trying to eradicate it for four years now!
I started dosing all for reef a few weeks ago and wanted to also dose kalkwasser but was told I'd be overdosing alkalinity which would have a detrimental effect?
You'll only overdose alkalinity if you add more than your tank uses so just dose less. Probably best to dose one or the other and not both unless you have loads of corals.
Hi Alex! great video as usual! Would u say u have to have a lot of money coming in to keep corals please?? 😀👍
No, not necessarily. You can get some great corals for not a lot of money and softies won't be expensive to maintain. Buying from other hobbyists helps with cost. It can be very expensive though - especially with higher end SPS corals like acropora that need more light, flow, a source of alkalinity, calcium etc.
The one thing that I can’t seem to keep for any amount of time is Zoas 😩 yet corals like hammers and mushrooms, Acans and Duncan’s grow really well, what do you think about bubble scrubbing ? Some say it’s good for removing unwanted slime from some corals ?
I've never tried bubble scrubbing - Aaron's Aquarium has done a video on it though. Shot in the dark, but zoas need iodine which is often too low in aquariums. Might be worth adding the occasional drop of Lugols.
Reef Dork thanks Alex, I do does iodine once a week, will look up Lugos 👍
Glad the elephant ear is on that list! Awful coral. Honestly I don't know why fish shops sell them especially because in my experience a few fish shops including MHAquatics consider them "just a mushroom" not knowing themselves that they are a clown eating mushroom and sell them to people with clowns!! Shocking. Nice one for making people aware of this one. 👍🏼😊
Nice vid Alex, I’m going to give a sun coral a go 😫 how’s the copper band any regrets eating your scans 😉🏴👍
Going strong so far, but still early days. He can eat the acans, just as long as he doesn't eat the scolys...
I bet 😂👍
My Gonipora were looking bad till I let the nutrients go a bit higher. If you keep a near 0 nitrate level in your tank you will need to do a lot of spot feeding. Also, avoid small frags of Goni… they are way more sensitive to algae build up, while larger frags will survive and eventually thrive as long as you keep them toward the bottom of the tank.
My Elegance coral absolutely love them and it in a corner on the sand not a problem all out tentacles the lot then for no reason after about 6-months it's half the size have moved it all around the tank to no avail I know it's just going to die on me and it was over £100 any ideas would be appreciated
Get yourself on a forum and post some photos. Cats have never had a great reputation for longevity I'm afraid.
My torch, suncoral, hammer and spawn all doing very well and they open up beautifully very day . In the evening when all light off. My sun corals will open up beautifully.
What about dendro corals for a sun coral alternative?
They're still too much hassle for my liking
Reef Dork just wondering but why?
I have the worst luck with clams. My SPS do great, but my clams always wither within a few weeks. I just can't seem to find a spot with high enough light, and low enough flow for them to be comfortable.
Not sure if you tried, but I've been told you need to feed them phyto to keep them
@@vincentjames1995 Only the little guys. I think 3" and bigger and they're basically fully photosynthetic.
@@jasepoag8930 Crazy! I didn't know that!
I’ve some bad experiences with wall hammers
Good list of alternatives. And I'm also a fan of green star polyps ^_~.
Boa tarde no inicio do video aparece um coral tipo anêmona qual seria o nome deste coral da capa
At what time point of the video?
What do you test your salt water for
Alkalinity all the time, calcium when I can be arsed, phosphate occasionally (although I should test more) and nitrate whenever I test phosphate. Occasionally salinity too, just to be sure.
pulsing xenia, orange cap monti and blue wavy hand coral should be on the list too.
In my first tank, I got a Goni as one of my first corals. It's been a year and a half and it's the only coral I've never had an issue with! It's so funny how different corals can react to different systems - I can't for the life of me keep a cyphastrea, and everyone else seems to have no issues with them!
High nutrients.
keeps sps, cant keep zoa's
I love gono's and have owned around 4 and only one has made it up to a year so far! I dont know why this one has made it probably because it was the least colorful..lol and the one I like the least! . It never fully extends though! Funny thing is today I unpluged the wavemaker for a while and forgot to plug back in and it extended more than I have ever seen! Guess I have been giving him to much flow! I wont stop though! I am bidding on one tonight from unique corals! I have seen some people with them so extended and beautiful that they look like torches! Hopefully the one I am bidding on will be the ticket! LOL> Its free shipping and bid is only at .99 cent right now so maybe I wll get lucky. Free shipping is because I placed an order already off their website that qualified me for free shipping and allows me to get in their ebay auctions! I also have credit from them as well because I won first prize on a live sale! It was originally 800.00. I love unique corals!
can you get stuff from liveaquaria in the uk?
Nope 😔
mushrooms are a big no no, had in my first tank, over ran the tank completely, they survive through anything...
evil blue things...
Merci pour ta vidéo !!! 👍👍👍
Merci pour regarder la video!
Beside of Bisma/Christmas worm feather and cluster dusters are much more easy to keep the Christmas worms
Really I don’t have a greatly established tank and gonis are the one thing that LOVEEEEE my tank after two years they have kinda taken over
I love the colours and texture of the florida ricordea corals - they just command a rather higher price than your usual Corallimorpharia :)
I payed $15.00 for mine.
@@lonestarpatriot876 That is an amazing price Travis - here in the UK the local fish shops near to where i live sell these wonderful corals in excess of £20 per mouth ( $26+)
@@bongosreef9406 Got it at one of my local LFS shops that is run by reefers. They always have them at that price. With that said, I normally see them at other LFS shops near me for $30.
after 3 years and having success would you still suggest beginners to avoid gonis ?
100% - I still have problems with some of them. They're not as bad as torches but still one to avoid
I have 3 gonipora in my tank, bought another one and its now starting to die...
my top 5 corals I regret buying would be 1 Acropora I don't know but I just can't keep them alive however millepora does great in my tank. 2 would be torch corals and hammers I don't know why but I always end up after 2 weeks with brown jelly disease I recently tried to make a bubble coral garden and that worked out for me. 3 would be Zoas they always do good for to first 2 weeks and then they close and never open again and just end up passing away however palythoa do fine for me same shape and sadly they have fewer color variants. 4 would be clove polyps they just end up melting away in my tank in a couple of days Xenia just works fine for me and it just adds the same movement to the tank and 5 would be anemones they always move to a dark spot in my tank shrink up and die a great alternative for them would be hellofungia they still at the same look as a nem and people still mistake them for a nem and they don't move at all downside is I would not recommend placing them on a rock because they need low par levels and low to medium flow.
I love how u give alts
For me, my fat head dendro is the most unique coral and my fav, and def worth a couple time a week spot feeding. it eats mysis quickly so you dont have to be there for hours feeding it or need a drinks bottle.
Only thing I'd add is becare if u have shrimp tho! They tend to rip apart sun n denro corals when they are fed. So might still need a cover of some sort. Bottle top or basket from fruit in grocery stores. Lol just my 2cents
@@jaysreef5721 yes quite true. Wrasses as well sometimes try steal food from their mouths too.
This is one reason i no longer keep shrimp lol. They make it too hard to feel corals : )
Yea agreed. I like watching a cleaner shrimp on tangs n such tho lol. Currently I only have peppermints. Kinda wish my lobster would turn into the shrimp eating demon folks say lol. Had the reef lobster for years now n still 5 mints lol. Never know I may try dendros in the nem tank tho...
Most people may think what I’m about to say is blasphemy but I don’t really recommend the zoanthids to beginners. They can take up a lot of room and grow pretty quick sometimes and if you don’t properly remove or frag them, their toxins can poison and kill some other corals. I wouldn’t try to keep them until they’ve got some more experience under their belt with maintaining good water conditions and fragging other corals but once they get the hang of it, zoas shouldn’t be a problem to deal with.
Derasa and Squamosa clam are the hardiest
I want a dendro. They can be easier than tubastrea
Love your videos
Thanks man 🙂
I have had my GSP for over a year now. You want to know how much it has grown? Brace yourself for this: …….
… It has grown from 4 polyp to 6 polyps.
So yeah. Kinda glad GSP didn't make this list as I did not have the problem that I usually hear about concerning their apocalyptic levels of growth.
Also, I love duncans. Mine went from 2 heads to about 15 over the past year. Nice and fat, and will readily eat fish pellets, lps pellets, mysis, and basically anything else.
As for ricordeas…. Despite all my discosomas and rhodactis shrooms thriving and getting fairly sizeable and reproducing, ricordeas never do well. More specifically they seem to be suicidal as they unglue themselves, wind up in a spot with zero light and die, or get sucked into the overflow and die, or land on one of my aussie lords and get devoured...and die. On the plus side, at lest my Aussie Lords have established dominance over the rest of the tank lol
Weird as I have no problem with my Florida Ricordia at all. The behavior you described sounds like a Ricordia that is trying to escape too bright of light. Mine has never moved and looks great. It is in partial shade under an overhang at the bottom of my tank.
shame imagine eating nemo 😂🦖
pocillopora should be #1, always. They grow fast, spread/spawn, and are impossible to get rid of.
Not a coral... but rainbow anemones... they won't stop splitting!
sun corals look better than duncans, find a orange duncan then maybe, and "florida ricordea" is kinda wrong or not totally correct, Ricordea florida are the genus species name, and till here i have never heard anyone reverse such,
Clams are illegal to keep in home reef tanks in China.
I remember when plum rocks were the most popular thing
elephant ear Nemo predator ? Excellent for me Nemo bites me all the time And they push coral that I put in the bottom of the riff And attack every new coral I put into the riff
They are cute but I hate them
I have never had clowns attack corals. The only time I have seen clowns nip at a coral is in tanks where the tank is under fed. If they are fed correctly, they will never touch your corals. With that said, some will nip at you if you stick your hands in the tank.
@@lonestarpatriot876 I have a problem with 0 phosphate So I feed about twice as much food so The phosphate should rise above 0 With no success for 4 months the phosphate is still 0
They do not eat the new coral just attack them
And their bites hurt
And most annoyingly they push lps Away from the light
🤣
Spit fire mushrooms thrive in my tank but for some reason i cant seem to keep any zoas in for no more then a week
Something is wrong if you can't keep zoas alive in your tank. Perhaps you are placing them in too high or too low of light or something is off with your water paramaters.
I had the same with zoas .. but my iodine (+ Mn ) was to low
Now they live and grow decent
@@metalldanny aye your the first person to actually give me advice. I tested it and its mad low.. will place order for fritz rpm and that has iodine in it and other trace elements. Thanks alot!!!
@@sliccc_nick1730 your welcome.. *I got a few zoas and need tho dose iodine every day .. I test it with COLOMBO
What????? WALL HAMMERS ARE ON THE LIST???? MY GOD THEY LOOK TOO GOOD. branching is awesome as well but much uglier imo. I don’t own a wall hammer colony yet only branching
I regret the day I bought my first aquarium 😂😂😂
Not cool, bro!🤣💜
Joshua Tree I will never do that again
While I do agree, I just can't resist walling Euphyllia. I just find them so much more beautiful than the branching varieties, especially when it comes to hammers. There a more colour varieties, and I love the big round anchor / horseshoe shaped tentacles compared to the smaller and less defined tips that branching ones tend to have. A large, colourful walling colony just looks absolutely incredible in my opinion. My Neon Green Indo wall hammer is my pride and joy.
I've never found that wall hammers are any more sensitive or prone to ailments than branching hammers, the problem is that as you say, once they start to recede for whatever reason, they're incredibly hard to save, and since Euphyllia are one of the corals most prone to bacterial infections and things like brown jelly disease, I definitely understand why most people don't find them worth the risk, especially given the hefty price tag.