Your first SPS coral.
The easiest stony corals to keep alive on a first try. Most aren't acros. This guide also shows what the named ones typically cost.
BUYING GUIDEUPDATED SEP 2026
SPS gets talked about like a graduation: softies, then LPS, then one day you're ready for acropora — and somewhere in there the entry fee quietly got set at a few hundred dollars and a controller. That's the wrong end of the shelf to start at. The stony corals that actually forgive a first attempt are cheap, fast, and mostly not acros at all.
The price line on a named coral depends on your account. A free account shows the lowest price in stock now at the shops CoralTicker checks, and no account shows what those shops typically asked in the month shown. Where a coral is a type rather than a name, there's no price line, and the page says why.
Worth saying what this isn't, too: a care manual. Lighting, flow and dosing are their own job and other people have done it well. This is the buying half — which stony corals survive a first attempt, and what the named ones are worth once you want one. If you haven't kept a coral at all yet, start a tier down: the best beginner corals for a new reef is the softie-and-LPS version of this list.
Montipora is the SPS you actually start with.
Ask around and the honest answer is almost always a montipora. Tidal Gardens, who grow and sell the stuff, put it plainly — montipora "tend to be easier to care for than Acropora making them more appealing to beginner hobbyists looking to try SPS for the first time" — and the thing they stress hardest isn't a number to hit, it's not moving: "stability is the ultimate goal". That's the whole difference between this genus and the one at the bottom of the page. A montipora will sit through a slightly wrong week. An acro will remember it.
Plain montipora has no price line here. A green digitata, an orange cap and a purple encrusting piece cost a few dollars a frag at nearly any shop. They're a genus rather than a name, and one price for all of them would be misleading. Named montipora is different, because CoralTicker can track a name.
The step up that doesn't cost like one — a named montipora priced like a zoa frag rather than like an acro. One thing to know before you shop for it: it's listed as "Forest Fire Digitata" about as often as by its full name, so what you're buying is a branching finger coral, not a plate.
Forest Fire Montipora
In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.
Current prices need a free account.
The two genera nobody puts on these lists.
Beginner-SPS lists usually cover montipora, birdsnest, maybe a stylophora, and stop. Cyphastrea and Stylocoeniella rarely make the list. That may be because they don't photograph well: both encrust flat across the rock, both look like a mat of tiny stars, and neither looks like the branching coral you pictured when you decided to try SPS.
They're also the best-stocked SPS CoralTicker tracks, and hard to kill.
If a first-time SPS buyer gets one coral, make it this one. It's at more of the shops CoralTicker checks than most stony corals, it's usually the cheapest in this section, and it encrusts across the rock, so you don't have to keep a branch tip alive. That's what kills most first SPS.
Meteor Shower Cyphastrea
In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.
Stylocoeniella is a genus most reefers haven't heard of, and it's the second one to try. It has the same flat encrusting habit and low demands, and it holds color in the medium light a new tank has. Buy it for the polyps, and be wary of any listing photo shot under heavy actinics.
Electric Daisy Stylocoeniella
In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.
Here's the same genus wearing a designer name, on a coral that's forgiving either way. Whether a name is worth paying extra for is your call, and it's a much cheaper lesson down here than one shelf up.
Burning Banana Stylocoeniella
In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked under $50 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.
Birdsnest, Stylophora and Pocillopora, honestly.
These three belong on any hardiest-SPS list, but none of them can be priced here. Reef Builders calls Seriatopora "the perfect beginner SPS coral": it grows very fast, it's forgiving, and it recovers well from being snapped, which will happen. Stylophora and Pocillopora are similar with thicker branches. They have rounded tips instead of birdsnest's needle points, they tolerate the mistakes a first SPS tank makes, and they're cheap nearly everywhere.
None of them has a name CoralTicker can follow. Birdsnest sells as "green birdsnest" or "pink birdsnest," which is a color and a genus, not a lineage. So there's no named coral and no price line here. A single price for "birdsnest" would be made up. Pay what your shop is asking for these three.
Your first acro costs less than you think.
The reason acropora reads as the finish line is money. The acro names people chase are four-figure colonies that vanish in a minute-long live sale, and if that's your only reference point then of course SPS looks like a tier you buy your way into. But the entry-level aquacultured acros aren't that market at all — they sit not far above everything else on this page.
Start here for a first acro, mainly because of the price below. People assume a first acro costs four figures, and it doesn't have to. Lineage is the other reason: a tank-raised frag from a long-running line has already shown it grows under aquarium lights. A wild colony hasn't.
ORA Red Planet Acropora
In October 2026, the shops CoralTicker checks typically asked $50 to $100 for this coral. That isn’t today’s price or the lowest one, and a single piece can cost more or less.
The names that built acropora's reputation are their own market, and the most-hunted acros of 2026 is the short list of which ones and why — including what they typically cost, which isn't always what the reputation says. And how to find and buy rare corals is the mechanics of landing one at all, once you're chasing the kind that sells out in minutes.
Where to actually start.
Shortest version:
- Buy one montipora and one cyphastrea — not five things in one order.
- Put them somewhere with decent flow.
- Then leave your alkalinity alone.
That's the assignment. One or two cheap pieces watched for a month will tell you more about whether your tank is ready for SPS than a full rack ever does.
The cheap corals on this list are easy to find. A plain digitata is at every shop, every week. For the named ones, it helps to know when they show up, like a Forest Fire or a Meteor Shower at a good price. Everything new at the shops CoralTicker checks lands in one feed, and a free daily email rounds it up.
There are no sell-out numbers yet. They're still being collected. If you'd add a hardy stony coral to this list, or want a named SPS CoralTicker doesn't track yet, say so on one of the links below. The list mostly grows when people ask.