Really a beginner coral?

[nickolas_warner]

I was looking for some new corals, and came across this.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+2856+2548&pcatid=2548

Now I have always thought or heard that Stereonepthya were very hard to keep alive, and definiatly not a beginner coral. But it was in this section. Anyone have this kind of coral?

 

[nickolas_warner]

anyone?

 

[MatthewLaw]

i received a frag of kenya tree which is doing well with DT's phtyoplankton.

 

[KarlBob]

They're both soft corals, but Kenya tree and Stereonephthea are not the same.

I have a small frag that I believe to be a yellow variety of Stereonephthea. It has survived a little over a year, but it hasn't grown very much at all. In the same time period, I've lost track of the number of times my Kenya tree has fragged itself and tried to spread daughter colonies all over the tank. I never target-feed either of these corals.

If the coral they're offering is indeed zooxanthellate (photosynthetic), then it might be suitable for beginning to moderate-level reef keepers, at least in the short term. From what I've read, it's pretty common for Stereonephthea to last a couple of years, then crash and die. If that fits their definition of "suitable for beginners", then it's correctly labeled. Some people would say that losing a coral after two years when it could live for twenty indicates that the aquarist wasn't ready to keep that coral. By that measure I don't know yet whether I'm advanced enough for Stereonephthea.