Coral size guide??

[Koregoth]

I see a lot of videos saying best coral for nano tanks but out side of researching coral types is there a rough guide for determining a good nano coral 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MrP]

I think the "Best" for nano corals aren't necessarily determined just by size or growth rate but also by how aggressive they are. I would never place a galaxia in a nano, for example or anything that has long stinging tentacles. 

 

I'm sure this thread will become a good guide on what's best for nanos. I'll start with zoanthids. Not just any zoanthid, though. Try to obtain some of the slower growing varieties. Fast growing zoanthids can become a problem in just a few short months. If you're new to saltwater, I understand that fast growing corals are appealing and exciting but a fast growing coral in a small tank that can't be easily fragged or removed are just a nuisance, to me anyway. 

[seabass]

I've seen just about everything in a nano before.  However, not all corals will work out long-term with their neighbors.  Along with fast growing zoanthids, other non-stinging corals which have been known to spread and quickly take over a tank include xenia, green star polyps, and mushrooms.  Green star polyps (GSP) are often kept on a separate rock to help prevent them from taking over the main rock-scape.  But xenia and mushrooms can spread relatively easily onto other rocks which are not connected.

 

Given enough time and favorable growing conditions, one coral tends to eventually win out over the other corals in your tank, leaving just a single species.  Picking slower growing species can allow you to keep a more diverse collection of corals for a longer period of time.  A couple of easy corals that you might consider are blastomussa and various brain corals.

[Tired]

Basically any coral you can get will grow to fit its available space. There's no size guide because they can be any size, from an inch-across frag to the size of a car, if conditions permit. 

 

A good way to find out what corals do well in nano tanks is to look at the nano tanks on here, and see what corals are common. Acan lords/micromussa lords are a good choice, as are any other micromussa species you can find. Blastomussas are good too. Rock flower anemones are great for a reasonably established tank, as they won't grow past a few inches across. 

 

In general, you want corals that have polyps an inch across or smaller (so a frag of several polyps won't look oversized), with short or no stinging tentacles, that don't grow super fast. Hardiness is useful, so, not acroporas. 

[Koregoth]

Thanks for the insight 

[ubpr]

Nano reef is more or less average, not large tank, not much restrictions. It's harder for a pico reef.

 If you have not browsed online and in stores enough to see with "mind eye" their comparative sizes, probably you have to do this work for every coral you want to buy. Not just come to a store and pick this and that at once, as choosing what you like for online ordering. Most of the stores show frag on eggcrate, and the size of eggxrate square, 1/2". This is your guide for its current size.

 

For the future size:

• Then image search for this coral name and colony or overgrown, to see it few years later.
• Then find coral description, is it aggressive, sending stinging tentacles or not, spilling digestive guts onto neighbors or not and so on. Image search for coral name and tentacles should show their extent to be ready for this. So, no acan echino, bu Hollywood stunner could be managed even in 5 gal tank, last in the flow, tentacles directed to the wall. What happens on contact, happens, see "coral warfare". I keep mine away for each other, but this is a regular work and looks not as good as densely packed reef tank.
• Then the pattern of grow: plating corals shade neighbors, encrusting trying to grow over, spreading settle wherever they can, not where you want them to be (xenia, Kenya tree, mushrooms). 

By coral group. There are:

• Soft corals, including mushrooms, not consuming calcium for building skeleton, do need to dose it. Most of them are either too big (for picos, fine for nanos), or spreading or encrusting. Take valuable space, and warfare is mostly chemical, using activated carbon helps.
• Zoas are special case, some have big polyps (pandora, utter chaos), most are usual medium size, and there are micro zoas, size of pinhead. In right conditions all of them grow fast, and frequent fragging requires precautions. Looks good only in heavy blue light, variety of wavelengths.
• LPS have mostly large polyps, with some exceptions comparable in size to SPS (Hollywood stunner chalice, cyphastrea) and just with small polyps (Blastomusa merletti, small polyped favias). They use calcium and alkalinity for building skeleton. For a lot of fast growing corals dosing may be necessary.
• SPS are small polyped, many of them are branching and easy to frag, but usually they have higher requirements in setup and care. Fast growing in right conditions, requiring intense dosing.

By pattern of growth:

• Avoid encrusting crony corals if you don't have a bandsaw for fragging. Sticks could be broken apart or cut by cone cutter.
• Learn to keep encrusting soft corals in check, this is available online.
• No "weed corals".
• Plating corals shade corals below them. Ans so on.

 

There is no one list for nano tank. Each of  corals is capable to grow 1m in size, you will have to frag it sooner or later.

 

[Nano sapiens]

On 1/4/2023 at 3:11 PM, Koregoth said:

I see a lot of videos saying best coral for nano tanks but out side of researching coral types is there a rough guide for determining a good nano coral 

The answer is not so cut-and-dry as the vids make out...

 

Truly, there are certain corals that are not considered desirable for a mixed-reef nano (anything with really long sweepers and/or corals that are hyper aggressive and/or spread super fast...and lastly those that are known to be highly toxic).  Luckily, these are just a relatively small subset of the corals that are available to the reef hobbyist.  That being said, what is typically overlooked in the equation is how the reef keeper has set up and manages his/her tank...which then influences how aggressively corals grow and compete.  

 

In this 12g nano, there are corals that have been coexisting for ~14 years (mint green pavona, Pavona maldivensis, Ponape Birdsnest, Letastrea, Fallen Horizons Letoseris, Ricordia mushrooms, Zoas, Sunset Montipora) and most others for at least a few years ('Blastos', 'Lords', 'Bankis', Stylocoeniella, 'Button Scolly', Acanthastrea pachysepta, 'Red People Eater' Zoas, Duncans):

 

 

 

The only truly segregated group are the Ricordia since the damage they typically inflict on most stony corals is substantial.  The rest typically work things out amongst themselves so it's rare that I have to intervene.

 

If you keep at this long enough and are a careful observer/researcher, you can develop strategies to manipulate the system's parameters in such a way that the corals look great while keeping aggression limited (not likely to stop it completely, though).