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So what's your favorite coral that you own? Give some basic info and a pic if you can. Past and current corals are ok as long as the pic is your own. If you aren't going to post a pic, make sure to give some good info.

Mine I think are these red and green blasto merlettis due to their eye catching contrasting colors:


They are a large polyp stony coral, and enjoy medium to bright reef lighting. I currently have them under 3 39w T5HO with an Icecap 660. They are secured about halfway up the rockwork in my 30g tank. This was actually too much light for most of the LPS in my tank, and eggcrate and screening was needed to lower the intensity of light. This coral however didn't react negatively like some of my other corals did when I upgraded my lights from 2 96w PC. Thier growth rate is moderate. In the 6 or so months I've had them they have put out maybe 12 or so new polyps. Right now it appears they are encrusting the rockwork, but they will grow their own skeleton.

This bunch was an xth generation frag of a cultured coral, that when fragged was about the size of my current (little) colony. Unfortunately the rest of the coral was lost, but mine remains. Due to the fact that this was a cultured coral it seems to be very hardy and faster growing than my frags from wild caught merlettis. It could just be a faster growing morph.

I used to be very good about feeding, and this coral would take bbs and cyclopeez, and I've even seen it take foods as large as brine/mysis if it was feeling frisky. Of course growth was better when feeding was consistant.

K that's it, I hope you enjoy and decide to share as well

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Zoas are my fav here some Yellow Zoas



"Party it up, Drink it down"

Brain corals are one of my favorites. Here are pics of my two brain corals. They are LPS corals and pretty easy to maintain. They can be maintained with moderate lightings.

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i121/Melosu58/100_0169.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i121/Melosu58/000_0252.jpg

Of the corals that I own, my Pachyseris Sp. "Elephant Skin" is by far my favorite.

Here's an old-ish pic of it. It's grown another ~2cm in diameter since the pic was taken... about a 1/3 increase in size since I took that pic.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02432.jpg

It's definitely a rather special coral, as it does not have any visible polyps, so it can't eat solid foods. In order for it to survive, it needs very high lighting (preferably MH), and very good water quality. Higher calcium and pH levels preferred to promote skeletal growth. The coral does best with strong intermittent flow--this allows some solid organic particles to settle on top of the coral and give it time to eat what it can, and then the remains/leftovers/big chunks need to be blown off. I run a pump on a timer that blows across it (and my other SPS corals) for 15 mins at a time twice daily. I feed it Kent Micro-Vert once or twice a week, and it seems to promote growth.

It has plated out and attached to another rock recently, and as soon as it has a decent amount of growth on that rock, I'm going to cut the plug and the coral attached to it free from the rock. I'll let it heal and then sell the coral on the plug. Thats what I do with all of my corals that come on plugs... let 'em grow onto a rock, cut 'em free, sell the plug...

There's now a pocillopora growth on that plug with the elephant skin, so I'll have to let that grow on to a rock too... maybe I'll saw the plug in half... I dunno...

I'll post a new pic up sometime... probably this weekend