The marine aquarium hobby and especially the practice of keeping and growing corals is all but dominated by photosynthetic corals, but corals of the dark have some really cool surprises. Take Truncatoflabellum for example, a deepwater and turbid environment coral that basically…
Care Requirements for Non-photosynthetic (NPS) Corals
Non photosynthetic corals (NPS) are some of the most unique corals you will ever see. They have the most odd shapes, textures, and cryptic behaviors. Their other name, azooxanthelle, suggests that their zooxanthelle is absent. However, studies have found that…
Stunning pink Hemicorallium and more from the Marianas trench
The Okeanos Explorer is currently exploring seamounts in the Northern Marians trench. The Expedition is live-streaming on YouTube, and the Okeanos website, we recommend you tune in! July 5th, Dive: 19 Today’s dive was on the Vogt Guyot. A Guyot is an…
Maine Coral Gardens are filled with Azoox corals and marine life
When we think of the state of Maine in the Northeast United States, we tend to think of lobsters and clam chowder. But as it turns out, there’s a really rich coral reef right off the coast of this northerly…
Truncatoflabellum veroni, this unseen azoox coral makes reef aquarium debut
Truncatoflabellum is a genus of Azoox corals so obscure, and rarely documented (alive), that we never had hope of seeing specimens in our aquariums. Thankfully, Cairns Marine, purveyor of so much exotic marine life from Australia has scored again by…
O Christmas Tree Coral, how lovely are thy branches
The Christmas Tree Coral is a very unusual species of Studeriotes soft coral which, due to its superficial resemblance to a christmas tree, used to show up quite more often at the Local Fish Store around the holidays. Since the…
Preliminary success with Dendronephthya carnation corals
Dendronephthya soft corals, better known as ‘carnation corals’, are some of the most beautiful and iconic members of natural reef communities. However, their captive care requirements have remained elusive and to date, no one has really been able to keep…
Two new species of azoox zoanthids, Palythoa mizigama & P. umbrosa
Two new species of zoanthids, Palythoa mizigama & Palythoa umbrosa were described earlier this year but we’re just now getting a good look at the appearance of these novel zoanthids. What makes the two new Palythoa species really interesting is not…
A visit to the Smithsonian Institution’s vast coral collection
Aquarists spend the majority of their coral-keeping career looking at, staring at, and growing live corals, hopefully. This is the inverse case for coral taxonomists such as Dr. Stephen Cairns who studies the remains of corals as skeletons, and all…
The Persian Gulf is hiding a treasure trove of brilliant Azoox corals
In the Ocean, and especially with corals, there’s still plenty left for us to discover, such as these incredibly Azoox corals being collected in the Middle East. When we first received this crop of images from a coral collector in…
