Earlier this year we shared with you a video of the Weeping Willow leather coral, a particular Sarcophyton species of soft coral that has been growing in aquaria since the nineties. At the beginning of the summer we began nourishing the aquarium water of this soft coral with Triton Reef Elementz and whatever this coral was missing, it isn’t now.
In over a decade under our care we’ve never seen this particular coral look so healthy, lush, and full of densely growing and long polyps. With such a showpiece of a soft coral we decided it deserved an extra level of documentation with a follow up video from how it looked earlier this year.
This particular toadstool leather coral colony was grown from a pinky nail sized rescue several years ago and we are delighted to be maintaining it so luxuriously. Part of the reason for this coral’s current state of health is that it’s being treated like an SPS coral with high light, crazy high alternating flow, clean water and careful dosing of reef aquarium additives.
As soon as a seed frag can be taken from this colony we’ll be targeting this soft coral strain for intensive propagation to help spread it far and wide. That alone will be a sight to see, a small field of “dandelion corals” blowing in the breeze of aquarium currents. Soft corals deserve more care and attention in our reef tanks and the weeping willow leather coral is a perfect example of that.
