As the hobby has continued to expand and the knowledge to be successful with it, some aspects have been found to be more important than originally thought. Foremost among these is water chemistry and specifically minor trace elements. While the…
Search Results For: Green Star Polyp
Goniopora-eating nudibranchs: A Goni Gardener’s Worst Nightmare!
As if reefkeeping wasn’t hard enough at times, and keeping Goniopora spp. Flowerpot corals in particular, we must now treat Gonis like we would treat Zoanthus or Montipora, and treat, and inspect them for predatory nudibranchs. Goniopora naturally inhabits turbid,…
Forced Fusion of the Dallas Acropora
Experimenting and playing god with corals is something that will always grab my attention. So when I noticed Ben Duncan, the owner of Exotic Aquaculture, a boutique reef store In Melbourne, Australia doing some grafting with iconic staghorn Acropora I…
Lobophyllia robusta is the easiest “Symphyllia” available
We are often asked to recommend which LPS species are the most suitable, but when we gazed into our tank today the answer had been staring us right in the face. Lobos! Sold as Spiny brain corals, Lobed Brain corals,…
The New Octocorallia: Scleralcyonacea (And A Few Remaining Mysteries)
Having now fully explored the Malacalcyonacea Part 1 and Part 2, it’s time to turn our attention to its sister group, the order Scleralcyonacea. These clades are roughly equivalent in terms of species-level diversity, but whereas the malacalcyonaceans included many…
The New Octocorallia: Malacalcyonacea Part 1
In our previous review of octocoral classification, we saw that anywhere from 3–8 orders have traditionally been used to organize this group’s bewildering biodiversity, based on morphological assumptions of increasing complexity within the evolutionary history of these corals. It was…
The New Octocorallia: A Brief Review of Taxonomic Chaos
Soft Corals, Gorgonians, and Sea Pens comprise the Octocorallia, a major branch in the coral tree of life whose 3000+ species come in nearly every shape imaginable. Not surprisingly, this biodiversity has confounded taxonomists for centuries, resulting in no shortage…
Jasmine Coral is a great soft coral for beginners
If you want a super easy soft coral for a low-maintenance tank, a nano, or a beginner tank, then look no further than the Jasmine Coral, Knopia octocontacanalis. The Jasmine is the only member of the genus Knopia and was…
Rhodactis bryoides: The shroom that thought it was an anemone!
Thanks to our friend and colleague Joe Rowlett’s book Indo-Pacific Corals new insights were provided on many different coral families. One new development I found particularly interesting concerns the taxonomy of corallimoprh since not much new work has been done…
Reefers are Sleeping On the ‘Inflatable’ Cynarinas
The reef aquarium world has been perpetually infatuated with showy large polyp stony corals as showcase centerpieces, or at the very least a very expensive flex. Trachies have long been celebrated, Acanthos are conspicuous consumption at its finest and only in…
