coral typs?

[adalius]

So far I have learnd that there are 2 typs of coral. But I dont know what they are called, nor Do I know the differnce. whats the differnce between them? are the only two types soft corals and hard corals?

In a nutshell there's two types, soft corals and hard corals. You can then break these two types down even more with the full on taxonomy (basically the naming you learn in Biology class, like Kingdom/Subkingdom/Phylum/Class/Family/Genus/Species). Basically there's two groupings based on the actual biology of the coral, there's Octocorallia (or Octocorals) and Hexacorallia which is based on the number of tentacles or lines of symmetry.

What you really need to know in regards to this is that there's a difference between soft and hard corals and it's basically what you'd expect, soft are soft, hard have a calcium skeleton to them, by and large anyway. Then there's two terms used in the aquarium trade, which are SPS and LPS, or small polyp stony and large polyp stony, both of which refer to hard corals and has to do with their polyp size as their name suggests. There's also hard and fast rules for them, for instance SPS require a stringent monitoring of calcium, more-so than LPS, and LPS tend to have tentacles that need to be considered when placing them near other tank inhabitants., things of that nature.

Is one coral, one animal, or does a coral consist of many types of animals in one block thing?

Some corals are symbiotic with zooanthellae. Basically it's an algae that works its way into coral polyps at a very early stage of growth. The zooanthellae, being algae, have chlorophyll in them which allows them to produce oxygen and other energy for the corals just from sunlight. Now you may have read that some corals 'eat', and this is true as well, because some corals can not survive solely off the energy the zooanthellae provide, and some lack them entirely. You may read that corals can be bleached by suddenly putting them under intense light that they weren't under before, and that's basically the lighting killing the zooanthellae which provide some of the brownish color in corals. In turn the corals tend to die if there isn't enough zooanthellae left to reproduce and provide them with supplemental energy. In turn, the coral provides the algae with a nice home inside its cells where it's in a fairly constant condition free from predation (unless the coral itself gets eaten, anyway).

Corals also come in many styles. They're all polyps but how they arrange can vary, they can be in plate shapes, mats, colonies of individual polyps, solitary polyps, branching tree shapes, etc. That's part of what makes them so desirable in a tank because you have have hundreds of colors and shapes in a single aquarium, yet they're all still corals. It'd be like being able to have hundreds of colors and configurations of cats, some with 3 legs, some with 2 tails, etc, all in your house.

I need help on learning things like....what a coral is...to the "anatomy" of a coral...to "feeding" a coral...to takeing care of them...learning all the biology behind them...what they are compatible with....why they have difernt colors...how to atach them to live rock...if thats what your suposed to do with them?

The best advice I can give you is to Google each and every question you have, read forums like this one, and to read a book called Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman, I recommended it to you about an hour ago on your Coral 101 thread because it's really a great, albeit pretty technical, book all about corals and their care and it hasn't gone too much out of date since it came out in 2001.

I just orderd my new custom made sump today. Im buying a Skimmer tomrrow...I have the 14 K lights...Im planning on buying a calcium reactor soon...So, I have all the equitment, but that is not going to do me any good if I dont know what im doing...I just know that i pretty much have everything I need to HAVE reef tank, except, i dont understand THE part of a reef tank...corals.

It sounds like you'll have a well equipped tank, but a carpenter with a top of the line hammer is no good if he doesn't know how to pound a nail. But you're on the right track by taking the time to ask questions rather than diving in head first and losing an entire tank of expensive corals. I think if you continue to explore your curiosity you can get pretty far in this hobby, and I recommend you sit down and plan very carefully what you want to put in your tank before you actually buy it. Sit down and look at the galleries of pictures here and decide what corals you like the look of, what fishes you like the look of, what shrimp/clams/other inverts you want. Then you can start to look at compatibility and you might find you can't have everything you want in one tank because something might kill/eat something else, or maybe they come from two different water temperature zones. By putting the effort into planning you can help avoid the costly lesson of dead livestock.