Guide category
Coral Guides
Explore coral profiles covering lighting, water flow, placement, feeding, and compatibility. Compare the guides when planning a reef display or reviewing care for an existing coral collection.
Coral reference library
Coral
Candy Cane Coral
Candy Cane Coral is a branching LPS with rounded fleshy polyps at the ends of tubular skeletal stalks. Contrasting centers and radial stripes often resemble pieces of candy or small trumpets.
Coral
Duncan Coral
Duncan Coral is a branching LPS with fleshy, flower-like polyps extending from tubular corallites. It is popular for visible feeding responses, moderate care requirements, and readily produced daughter heads.
Coral
Green Star Polyp
Green Star Polyp is an encrusting soft coral with fast to very fast growth after acclimation. Its main long-term management challenge is containing the mat and pruning it before it reaches neighboring corals, pumps, overflows, seams, or porous rock.
Coral
Hammer Coral
Hammer Corals are fleshy Euphylliid LPS corals named for their hammer-, anchor-, or T-shaped tentacle tips. Their large polyps sway in gentle flow and can form branching colonies or continuous wall-like skeletons.
Coral
Mushroom Coral
Mushroom corals are solitary or colonial corallimorpharians with fleshy, disc-shaped bodies. They are valued for hardiness, vivid colors, and their ability to thrive in lower-light areas where many stony corals struggle.
Coral
Zoanthid Coral
Zoanthids are colonial reef animals made of individual polyps connected by living tissue. They are popular for vivid colors, relatively forgiving care, and their ability to form dense mats across rockwork.
Coral
Acan Coral
Acan Lord is the fleshy colonial stony coral Micromussa lordhowensis, formerly Acanthastrea lordhowensis. Other corals are also traded as acans. Ask about the individual colony's previous conditions and acclimate gradually rather than assuming equal hardiness or lighting tolerance.
Coral
Birdsnest Coral
Birdsnest is a trade name for branching Seriatopora corals, with S. hystrix a common reference. Growth and care vary among species and cultured forms.
Coral
Favia-Type Brain Coral
Favia-type brain coral is a trade label for several massive or encrusting stony corals, often Dipsastraea, Favites and related merulinids. Rounded, polygonal or maze-like corallites and colorful tissue do not establish identical tolerance. Adjust care to the identified colony's history, feeding response and observed sweeper reach.
Coral
Frogspawn Coral
Frogspawn Coral is a fleshy LPS coral named for tentacle tips that resemble clusters of frog eggs. The aquarium trade name includes both wall-form Fimbriaphyllia divisa and branching Fimbriaphyllia paradivisa. Both rely heavily on photosynthesis, benefit from stable reef chemistry, and need enough room to expand without touching neighbors.
Coral
Montipora Coral
Montipora is a diverse stony-coral genus with plating, encrusting, branching, leaf-like and massive forms. Stable measured chemistry, acclimated lighting, movement through the growing colony and pest inspection matter. Care varies by species and growth form.
Coral
Toadstool Leather Coral
Toadstool Leather Coral is a hardy soft coral in the genus Sarcophyton. It develops a thick stalk topped by a broad cap covered with retractable polyps. It is popular with newer reef keepers because it adapts to a range of lighting conditions, but mature colonies can become very large and may chemically compete with other corals.
Coral
Torch Coral
Torch Coral is a branching LPS coral valued for its long, flowing tentacles and bright contrasting tips. It obtains much of its energy from symbiotic zooxanthellae but can also capture suspended food. Its care is manageable when lighting, flow, water chemistry, and spacing remain consistent.
Coral
Xenia Coral
Xenia is a soft-coral genus with eight-tentacled polyps, including pulsing cultured forms. ORA's Pom Pom variety has compact pulsing stalks and can encrust many surfaces. Those observations do not establish identical growth, nutritional needs, pulsation or tolerance for every traded Xenia.
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