Looking for expert opinions

[albert_dao]

There's a few LPS that you'd get away with too. Candy canes and Echinophyllia's come to mind.

[Snappy]

I agree with Rory in that there is more than one way to be successful in keeping a reef. One suggestion I have is to get the most pourous live rock that you can as it creates more surface area for the bacteria to grow (inside & out). As you can see from this thread there are many different opinions, and usually most have some merit, however, do some reading and go with what you feel will work best for your circumstances and budget. No matter how much you read there is most often still a little trial & error. I have found that this hobby is more forgiving than a lot of people let on. Do the basics properly and the rest will come as your hobby and experience grows. I have found that even though this board is made up for the most part of amatuers I have still learned a lot from them.
Good luck,

[Sarina]

What is the difference between LPS and SPS and soft corals? They all look the same to a beginner like me.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Softies - toadstools, leathers, mushrooms, zoos, etc. (no hard calcium-based skeleton)

LPS - Large Polyp Stony - frogspawn, hammer, brain, bubble, etc. (usually large hard skeleton base with med. to large polyps growing on top)

SPS - Small Polyp Stony - Acropora, millipora, cat's paw, montipora, caps, etc. (Mostly skeleton, some finger or antler-like, others are more plate-like, with thousands of tiny, hairy polyps)

As a general rule, softies - LPS - SPS go from easiest to hardest, least light to most light, lowest water quality requirements to highest water quality requirements, low or med. current to high current.

That's why most newbies start with low light softies, advance to LPS and many then upgrade to powerful MH lights & lots of flow to keep SPS like acros & millis.

HTH,

Anthony

[mark]

I also totally believe in reading and researching as much as you can first before adding water.

Along with Canreef and the other forums, found this site useful as well; http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/index.htm . It belongs to Fenner of the book "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist".

[vanreefer]

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/for...&daysprune=365

There's a huge reference library now just scroll down on the index page

If it says there are no posts.. simply change the display options. Change "last 2 weeks" to "begining"

P.S. Maybe the mods could adjust the display options in the reference library