Coral

Sympodium encrusting soft coral starting to appear in blue and green colors

Sympodiumis an interesting encrusting soft coral which is just beginning to show up in some coral shipments. We personally spied theSympodiumcolony above tucked away in a corner of a display tank at Amazing Aquariums and Reefs and we’ve been getting reports of this genus showing up sporadically at stores throughout the country. Not to be confused with the “Blue Clove” polyps that became much more widelyavailable in the last couple of years,Sympodiumis related to Xenia but it does not pulse and it has much smaller polyps.

Better yet, theSympodiumcolonies we’ve seen are pretty darn colorful with brightly colored blue or green topsides, contrasting undersides and large knobby reddish brown pinnules. About five years ago we obtained and kept a nice largeSympodiumcolony that was imported from Indonesia and we found it to be a very unique and undemanding soft coral. A few more pictures of Ali’s colony can be viewed after the break, as well as a detailed account and video of a blue colony from Reef Buidlers reader, Justin McGuinness.

“This is the most amazing and colorful unknown soft coral I have ever seen. The colors are absolutely stunning and this is the first coral I have ever seen that looks much better under T-5 HO lighting than Metal Halide. I believe most would argue that this coral is in either the Anthelia or Xenia genus. Anthelia typically have individual polyps joined to a common encrusting base, whereas Xenia typically have a stalk with branches.

Although this coral is very compact, there appear to be several individual stalks which branch. I have also observed some individual polyps pulse on occasion. I strongly believe this is a new Xenia species! The center of each polyp (flower) is a brilliant blue which leads into a bright green on each of the tentacles which are “feathered”, the stalk is a knock your eyes out brilliant blue. This rock had some clove or glove polyps mixed between the stalks which looks quite nice. This is a 1/3 piece of a single rock with 10-12 individual colonies on it.

我把每一个三分之二into different tanks and different lighting and water flows. All three pieces opened up quickly and seem to like low, medium, and high flow. I did break a piece off of one stalk and the stalk itself seemed to break like a sponge would. It was more brittle than it appeared. I filmed it with my POS digital camera and I will film it again when I upgrade. If you have anything intelligent to add about this unknown soft coral please do so. This specimen was collected in Jarkarta a province of Indonesia.”

Jake Adams

Jake Adams has been an avid marine aquarist since the mid 90s and has worked in the retail side of the marine aquarium trade for more than ten years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Marine Science and has been the managing editor of ReefBuilders.com since 2008. Jake is interested in every facet of the marine aquarium hobby from the concepts to the technology, rare fish to exotic corals, and his interests are well documented through a very prolific career of speaking to reef clubs and marine aquarium events, and writing articles for aquarium publications across the globe. His primary interest is in corals which Jake pursues in the aquarium hobby as well as diving the coral reefs of the world.