Help me plan future coral placement

[DIFish]

Hey All! I am doing some future planning for coral placements and could use some input. I am not that great at designing good color schemes, and honestly know very little about most coral out there. I am trying to avoid having my tank become an active mess of random corals, so thought I would get some feedback from those of you who have great looking tanks. Any input on cool and colorful looking corals that I could keep and which zone they would work best in would be greatly appreciated. If this were your tank, what would you put in it and where?

Some Background-
Looking for hardier corals, nothing extremely finicky or $200+ a head
Tank is Reefer 250 tank. Flow can be adjusted as needed to any level.
All coral safe fish currently and mixed corals planned
5-10 ppm Nitrates planned, assume stable levels of alk and cal with dosing, less maintenance the better
All PAR readings were done with a seneye unit, might remove my lid and replace with mesh in future so that would be around a +20 par bump avg

White Zone- Future SPS spot? Birds nest in the crevice?
Yellow Zone- Hammers and torches? Maybe some encrusting in between?
Dark Green Zone- No idea, Lepastrea frag right now
Orange- Acan lord and Ricardo Mushroom at moment. I really like Acan, Favia, Brain but that is a lot of red
Red Zone- Firework Clove right now, not the biggest fan
Light Green Zone- GSP Island, non negotiable
Black Zone- Zoa Garden

 

[nick7948]

I try to ensure that similar colored acros are not next to each other for contrast. I think rainbow type (several colors) can be scattered throughout. I thought about having them together in the middle but decided against it, although it could look good. Generally Millies and especially Tenuis need to stay high or in some way maintain adequate par. Another thing you can plan for is acros that can color up without a high par for lower parts of the rockwork. (Vivid Confetti, BC Adam Bomb, PC Rainbow, JF Fox Flame)

 

[nick7948]

If you're not using the max power on your lights I would consider increasing it some so you have more area for corals that do better with 300+ par. The other option is adding some rock to get acro closer to the light but if you go too high the acro could eventually grow out of the water, especially if it's the type of acro that grows up, as opposed to a table acro.

 

[DIFish]

If you're not using the max power on your lights I would consider increasing it some so you have more area for corals that do better with 300+ par. The other option is adding some rock to get acro closer to the light but if you go too high the acro could eventually grow out of the water, especially if it's the type of acro that grows up, as opposed to a table acro.

I could change lids which would improve my par by about 20. Other than that it is T5 lighting so not much I can do there without spending $$. I am not sure how many sps I will end up with, but am worried about them reaching out of the water. Is their any kind of encrusting one that would work for the top left?