Most hardiest and forgiving encrusting coral for 10 gallon nano?

[iLikeAlgae]

Hi all,
I am a new reefer, and I've been doing well with my new 12 gallon shallow tank for last few months(actual water volume about 10 gallon),
I had a great success with zoas! Recently tho, I came across encrusting corals in my friends tank and wanted to fill my tank with just encrusting corals.
I wonder if there are easy encrusting corals that will satisfy all the below checklist:
1. not too picky with light and flow
2. somewhat tolerant to parameter swing
3. somewhat ok to salinity swing - i am still practicing but every time I do water changes salinity would change little bit between 1.022 ~ 1.026
4. Not too aggressive since tank space is limited

So far I am looking into lepto, montipora capricornus, chalice and favias...
If none of these are a good option, maybe I should get some mushrooms to achieve similar effect, but I would really like LPS encrusting corals.

Sorry let me know if this is a terrible question and I should stick with softies instead

 

[littlefoxx]

Welcome!!! I cant answer the coral question as Im not good with corals (been in the hobby 2 years now) but others can for sure help!

 

[betareef]

Hi all,
I am a new reefer, and I've been doing well with my new 12 gallon shallow tank for last few months(actual water volume about 10 gallon),
I had a great success with zoas! Recently tho, I came across encrusting corals in my friends tank and wanted to fill my tank with just encrusting corals.
I wonder if there are easy encrusting corals that will satisfy all the below checklist:
1. not too picky with light and flow
2. somewhat tolerant to parameter swing
3. somewhat ok to salinity swing - i am still practicing but every time I do water changes salinity would change little bit between 1.022 ~ 1.026
4. Not too aggressive since tank space is limited

So far I am looking into lepto, montipora capricornus, chalice and favias...
If none of these are a good option, maybe I should get some mushrooms to achieve similar effect, but I would really like LPS encrusting corals.

Sorry let me know if this is a terrible question and I should stick with softies instead

I'll tag along for this journey too. I have a nano where the leather's and mushrooms thrive. I have even had to prune the sinularia back. I also have some acans and star polyps. Maybe an encrusting coral, if there is one that is hardy enough, might be interesting.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Meteor shower cyphaestra. Been in the hobby forever, should be able to find a frag relatively cheap

 

[iLikeAlgae]

Meteor shower cyphaestra. Been in the hobby forever, should be able to find a frag relatively cheap

Thanks for the suggestion. The reason why I didn't added this in my original consideration was because a lot of websites seems to list them as "intermediate" coral, whereas Leptos are marked as easy.

There seems to be a lot of different forms of cyphaestra, is there specific type that's easier than others?

 

[betareef]

Thanks for the suggestion. The reason why I didn't added this in my original consideration was because a lot of websites seems to list them as "intermediate" coral, whereas Leptos are marked as easy.

There seems to be a lot of different forms of cyphaestra, is there specific type that's easier than others?

Found thid write up https://tidalgardens.com/articles/coral-care-articles/cyphastrea-coral-care.html

where they say "This is a great beginner friendly coral that can find a home in a variety of tanks ranging from mixed reefs to shadier sections of an SPS dominated tank." They suggest relatively low light is best.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Thanks for the suggestion. The reason why I didn't added this in my original consideration was because a lot of websites seems to list them as "intermediate" coral, whereas Leptos are marked as easy.

There seems to be a lot of different forms of cyphaestra, is there specific type that's easier than others?

Id say they are pretty equal in terms of care.

As far as cyphaestras, The branching cyphastrea seems to have a reputation of being more sensitive than the encrusters but I've never noticed much difference.

 

[ninjamyst]

If it's encrusting, it's aggressive. Be careful where you put it. Encrusting corals WILL take over the entire roxk

 

[exnisstech]

The reason why I didn't added this in my original consideration was because a lot of websites seems to list them as "intermediate" coral, whereas Leptos are marked as easy.

I'm not sure how they rate coral care. I tried 3 different leptos and they all perished. I had a meteor shower Cyphastrea that grew from a frag to about 5 or 6 inches accross in the same tank. Do not let one grow on to the glass tho. Mine over grew the rock and I thought I was going to break the glass trying to get it off when I broke the tank down. There are some nice encrusting monti like superman monti. Monti caps are more plating and I would not add one to a small tank. They grow fast and can shade out other corals. I have one that I'm constantly breaking pieces off of to keep it under control.
I received a grinch porites as freebee a while back that is doing great. I need to mount it because it's encrusting on the rack. They are super cheap which is a plus.

 

[PotatoPig]

If it's encrusting, it's aggressive. Be careful where you put it. Encrusting corals WILL take over the entire roxk

Someone here described these types as being “concealed carry”. They don’t look like they’re able to send out stingers, but dang… if they figure out there’s another coral nearby they can launch a serious attack.

Eg: My Hydnophora murdering my toadstool:

 

[Maho.B]

I second the Cyphastrea choice, they encrust pretty quickly and are beautiful, meteor shower and bizarro have been great. For me they can't tolerate much light however and are happiest in low to medium flow. Not sure how any of the corals will handle salinity swings though, I have an Tunze ATO that works awesome so I have no experience with salinity fluctuating. Good luck!

 

[PotatoPig]

For me they can't tolerate much light however and are happiest in low to medium flow.

Agree with this.

Mine did horribly even at the bottom of the tank until I moved it way over to one side and partially shaded by rocks, in a low flow area, whereupon it recovered quickly.

 

[IceNein]

This may sound stupid, but if you sort by price ascending and look for encrusting corals, the cheapest corals will be the ones that grow fast and are easy to care for. Cheap corals aren't less desirable corals, they're simply corals that propagate easier.

Everyone is recommending cyphastraea, and if you look them up, sure enough they're some of the cheaper corals out there.

 

[PotatoPig]

This may sound stupid, but if you sort by price ascending and look for encrusting corals, the cheapest corals will be the ones that grow fast and are easy to care for. Cheap corals aren't less desirable corals, they're simply corals that propagate easier.

Everyone is recommending cyphastraea, and if you look them up, sure enough they're some of the cheaper corals out there.

100% agree on this.

A lot of these corals aren’t cheap because they’re boring, they’re cheap because everyone and their dog can get them growing fast so the market is saturated with frags.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Perhaps Birdsnest and stylopora but not a lot can go in a 10 gallon especially based on growth and quick overcrowding

 

[Maho.B]

Totally agree, the "cheap" equals fast growth rate worked on finding Favia that actually grow.

 

[iLikeAlgae]

I second the Cyphastrea choice, they encrust pretty quickly and are beautiful, meteor shower and bizarro have been great. For me they can't tolerate much light however and are happiest in low to medium flow. Not sure how any of the corals will handle salinity swings though, I have an Tunze ATO that works awesome so I have no experience with salinity fluctuating. Good luck!

I do not have a Tunze one, instead I use the Fzone one I bought from amazon which it has 2 light sensor that marks high and low point. Everytime I turn it off for water change and set the new tank level to ATO low level, upon starting again it will try to calibrate itself by filling the water upto high point, afterward it will top off to low point. So theres always more freshwater added right after the water change..

 

[iLikeAlgae]

Thanks guys I will definitely look into Cyphastrea, hopefully can find some good online deals around Christmas.

So if I want to add some varieties beside Cyphastrea, what is the second hardiest encrusting corals? Following the "sort by cheapest" method, it seems to be lepto, Leptastrea, favia and chalice in that order?

 

[betareef]

Thanks guys I will definitely look into Cyphastrea, hopefully can find some good online deals around Christmas.

So if I want to add some varieties beside Cyphastrea, what is the second hardiest encrusting corals? Following the "sort by cheapest" method, it seems to be lepto, Leptastrea, favia and chalice in that order?

It's going to be a little variable depending on the situation. I bought a small frag of lepto, which seemed to be doing well, until the tank developed a little algae, and it succumbed quickly. A acan frag I had has recovered however.

 

[stewy14]

Zoas encrust? Or grow over? Idk, but they look cool fully formed over a rock!