First SPS - Recommendations?

[MeteorFlower]

Hi all, I'm kinda new here, and I had a question for everyone... I am contemplating getting into SPS corals for the first time, and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations as to some good SPS corals for the first-timer. My tank is a 75 gallon with a 20 gallon sump/fuge, ~100 lbs live rock, 2X250 watt MH and 4X65 watt PC actinics (new lights - yay!), and has been running for over a year now. My fish are 2 juvenile Ocellaris clowns, a pygmy angel, a royal gramma, a blue spotted jawfish, and a green mandarin (everyone is doing really well). I've had great luck with my softies and LPS, but can't seem to find a lot of info on good SPS to start off with.... Favorites? Suggestions? Ones to avoid? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[glennr1978]

I've only been successfully keeping SPS for about a year now. IME birdsnest are practically indestructible. Monti's are supposed to be pretty hard to kill too, but I managed to knock off a few when first trying SPS.

[stoneroller]

I have some Montipora digitata frags that would be good for starting off with. If you come down to the Buda area let me know.

[Bill S]

Try a piece of green slimer or green cap. Both are hardy, both grow well, and they are both very attractive. On top of that, they are cheap.

[ErikH]

Do keep an eye on the angel. I lost a few corals until I caught my pygmy grubbin on some polyps of a blue tort that Bill (the guy above) gave me.

[roscozman]

Our orange cap has been good for us so far. We are fairly new and it has survived a couple of mistakes we have made on our tank (too much carbon was one mistake).

[MeteorFlower]

Thanks everyone! I think all the SPS y'all mentioned sound great, and thanks for the warning, I'll keep an eye on my angel. He hasn't touched anything so far....(knock on wood). And roscozman, if you don't mind my asking, could you tell me about what happened with the carbon? I really don't know much about SPS yet, but I do run a little carbon every now and then... is there something I should look out for? Thanks!

[roscozman]

We had some Xenia, Anthelia, and Green Star Polyps die on us. Some of our new SPS frags bleached out as well. We really don't know what happened, but the only thing we changed/added to the tank was the carbon. We talked to a couple of people on here and realized we put in way to much carbon for the size of our tank. Since we are fairly new, there could be some other explanations but this is the majority opinion we received.

[Bill S]

Carbon CAN suck O2 out of the water upon first use.

Xenia dying can also release all of the toxins they have been absorbing back into your tank. This can trigger a crash...

[MeteorFlower]

Thanks!