coral combo

what are some good beginner corals? i would like a mix of color and textures.... i have an 8 gallon biocube so i know that kinda limits me to only a couple of corals.... thanks

 

zoas, button polyps, leathers, frogspawn

 

here are a few

kenya tree
GSP
zoanthids
mushrooms
pretty much just about nay leather coral
frogspawn

 

any zoanthids or mushrooms you specifically recommend?

 

Whammin Watermellons, Tubbs Blues, Fire and Ice, Radioactive Dragon Eyes, Fruitloops, LA Lakers, are just a few pretty nice looking zoas for reasonable prices. You'll pay .50-$5 per polyp and could get small colonies under $25.

You get into the higher end zoas and palys like Purple Hornets, Candy Apple Reds, Darth Mauls, KO Knockouts, Rastas, Pink Elephants, Marijanes, Nightmares, etc. They're beautiful, but your looking at $25-$50 per polyp for some of them. I'd recommend checking out your local reef clubs, this forum, Nano-Reef, and Reef Central. You could get a lot of these from other reefers at a fraction of the cost of the LFS.

However, I'd start off with the cheaper named and wild frags. Then when you really get into it, the higher end stuff is nice because you could trade or sell some frags to help supplement the cost of the hobby.

 

Yes zoas

I love them they do great even under crappy lights like what I have.

 

I never kept a soft coral, despite the recommendations most will give, just jumped in with a torch, then some acans, brains and trachys.

 

Acans, favias, candy canes, torch, hammer and frogspawn would all do fine under the lighting of a Biocube 8.