Pink anthelia

[eric1283]

What is everyone's opinion on pink anthelia? My lfs has a nice size colony right now at a good price and I was considering getting it. Are they pretty easy to care for? Also are they a fairly hardy coral? Just wondering if I should try it out because my tank is just at a month old but all levels are good.
Sg 1.024
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 5 ppm
Temp stays between 78 and 82

 

[eric1283]

Any advice would greatly be appreciated because they are holding it for me until I get out of work in an hour.

 

[blue98ls1]

They will dominate anything they attach to. They look cool at first until they take over everything.

If you put some in, keep them on a rock by themselves. They will spread to any other rock they can touch.

As for care, there isn't hardly any. Very hardy and very hard to kill, even on purpose.

 

[RyanSweatt2004]

If you like a long swaying coral to fill in empty rock space then its a great choice.It can overtake smaller polyps like zoanthids and SPS corals but I think its looks awesome flowing between large LPS and soft corals.

 

[blue98ls1]

And lemme tell you, it WILL fill in the empty spaces and then some.

 

[eric1283]

Thanks for the responses I decided to get it and see how it does. Are they any worse about spreading than green star polyps?

 

[debincalif]

I had *one* polyp on a piece of LR... it survived my cycle and has grown very quickly in my system. Personally, I like it. If/when it gets to the point where it's starting to overtake anything else, I'll just cut it back and pass some on to newbies starting out or trade it in to the LFS.

 

[eric1283]

I had *one* polyp on a piece of LR... it survived my cycle and has grown very quickly in my system. Personally, I like it. If/when it gets to the point where it's starting to overtake anything else, I'll just cut it back and pass some on to newbies starting out or trade it in to the LFS.

How many polyps are there now and how long has it been growing?

 

[RyanSweatt2004]

They are about the same as star polyps with spreading but they don't sting near as bad and are super easy to control. I just take a tooth pick and peel back the leading edge of the polyp mat and the polyps come right up in small patches.

 

[williewilliams]

They will take over your tank quickly and I can't seem to stop it from speading. That was until I lined the colony with mint chip palys. They seem to not get along. I just pulled out about 100 or so stalks the other day.

 

[eric1283]

It's good to hear that they spread quickly I want things that will fill a lot of space I love these and gsp but but so many care sites have conflicting information about pink anthelia some say it easy some say its hard some say low light and some say high lighting so I just wanted to get advice from people here that actually keep it

 

[likefish]

i added about 10 heads from a friend to my BC29 about a year ago when i was first getting it up and running. It looked beautiful and gave me the satisfaction of wathing it grow and spread.

As i added other pieces to the tank i started to get a bit annoyed as it moved onto / over and around my new additions.

After doing some pruning and trimming i started to discover new patches here and there in my cube. High light, low light, in crevices, under the edges of rocks. It grows anywhere and everywhere! Now i fight a constant battle to keep it where i want it. It is a great started piece but you will find it is a challange to keep in check in the future!

Just a warning!

I suggest keeping it isolated on its own rock, touching nothing else, and take the rock out of the tank to prue it.

 

[blue98ls1]

As for lighting, they don't seem to like low light all that much but won't die, lol. I took a large rock covered with them and threw it into my 5g damsel tank (he's not good with other fish). They have never opened under his little LED fixture, but haven't died.