Easy low light sps - Psammocora contigua

[Cubeman]

Quite often on this and other forums I'll see people looking for recommendations on "low light" sps. Let me push Psammocora contigua to the top of that list. Not the most colourful coral, mine varies between chocolate brown and light grey depending on how much light it gets. Looks a bit like fuzzy sandpaper and encrusts and grows in small flattened upright nodules that look like malformed moose antlers covered in velvet.

I bought a frag that was originally placed in a stock 14 gallon biocube and it grew well at the bottom of the tank (it was chocolate brown). It was moved to another tank under metal halides about a year later and turned light brown with grey tips in colour. It didn't grow any faster under more light.

I recently moved and had a piece of live rock with some of this coral on that sat in a bucket for 3 months with no light other than the natural light in the room, no water changes, room temp, and just a powerhead to keep the water from stagnating. It remained alive the entire time retaining its brown colour. It's now been placed in its new tank and is showing no ill effects.

Now if only they were all that undemanding!

[reeferious]

this sounds like my blue coral or heliopora. i grew my blue coral from frag to 18 inch tall living columnar shapes that's so perfect for sttaching corals frags. every so often i would smash tips off columns just so that inner blue crystalline structures would show through.

[Millepora_Maniac]

Originally Posted by reeferious

this sounds like my blue coral or heliopora. i grew my blue coral from frag to 18 inch tall living columnar shapes that's so perfect for sttaching corals frags. every so often i would smash tips off columns just so that inner blue crystalline structures would show through.

I think they call this the cat's Paw coral if am not mistaken, very forgiving coral, hardy, grows in the lowest light and is fuzzy, brown, grey in appearance with "cat's paw" shaped growth tips.