stocking corals (advice from a lfs)

**GoWild** · 07-15-2012, 07:54 AM

I have two tanks, a 20 and a 72 both have 2 t5 lights. (I know lil about corals) the 72 gallon is my wifes tank with peaceful, reef safe fish and is housing 2 tech 4 corals till I stabilize my nano. The corals are, 2 purply blue mushroom, one big, one and a big colony of zoas and a lil frag of zoas.
I started the nano to be my mini reef and work my way into corals, I was gonna upgrade the lights, etc. well, looking at corals today in the frag tank at the lfs, I guess I started liking sps corals, im not ready for that step yet, but the guy told me that I should keep the lights on my nano and do only soft coronly And/or a rose tip anemone and upgrade my lights on the 72 to do sps in there because the will outgrow a 20gal. I can only remember the one sps I liked and it was a hammer head/torch coral and a frog spawn as well as a couple other ones. I like the colorful corals.
Should I follow his advice, or can I add sps to my nano. Side note, the 72 is my wifes tank, as in she gets to pick the fish. My way to get her to let me start the sw lol we haven't looked at corals together yet, so she's content on fish only in her tank. So ideally id like to just stock the nano with corals till I get her to bite. Thanks in advance for the advice

**ILuvMyGoldBarb** · 07-15-2012, 12:06 PM

First off, Hammers, Torches, and Frogspawns are LPS. You can put them in a 20gal but with their sweeper tentacles they put out, it may be a bit difficult to get everything out of their reach. As for SPS in a 20gal, the issue is not really their size as you can frag them to keep them small. The real issue is actually keeping up with the Calcium demands of these corals and keeping the water quality high enough for them in that small a volume.

**sheamurai** · 07-15-2012, 12:13 PM

+ 1 to that.

I also wouldn't recommend an anemone if you are really keen on corals only - when they are happy they split and wander the tank, if they are unhappy they wander the tank looking for a spot they like. And they can get fairly large too, crowding other corals. I would only keep an anemone in a larger tank where its easier to keep the water parameters stable and they will split less often. In a nano tank you mostly want things to stay where they are set.