Tip of the Day – 9/10/2012

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: “Friends don’t let friends buy anthelia”. While this statement appears to be very unfair toward the one soft coral, it’s actually directed at a much broader array of invasive corals and serves as a helpful message to frag happy aquarium keepers. Anthelia is a very fast growing, aggressive, invasive coral. A single stalk can rapidly multiply and take over an aquarium, often chewing up valuable real estate and choking out other corals. Because of this, most reef keeping hobbyists often end up hating it after just a short period of time. Just like a venereal disease, these fast growing corals often get passed around from one aquarist to another they can be hard to get rid of. Circling back around to our original statement, honest aquarium keepers shouldn’t let their less experienced hobbyist friends purchase, trade for, or even take for free any of these corals. Additionally, reef keepers shouldn’t try to sell this stuff or try to pass it off like an amazing, easy-to-care-for coral. This mindset can be applied to many different soft corals, polyps, and corals like Galaxea who have a tendency to sting and kill everything around them.