Rare (?) soft corals... LFS input welcome!

[Moe_K]

I was reading that a few folks have recently decided to forget SPS, and go with softies and LPS. So I picked up a soft coral ID book to see what types of softies there are on the world's reefs.
I was wondering how come we don't see many purple, orange, or bright yellow Nephthea stalks. Same color Litophyton stalks would be cool. How about a blue Steronephthea with white polyps?
These things look pretty good in the book, and they're listed as common on the reefs. There are others that are really cool looking, but they're either impossible to keep (Dendronephthea) or are listed as rare.
Is it possible to get some of the interestingly colored Nephthea or Stereonephthea? Anyone seen it in a store?

 

[Scuba_Dave]

I'd buy those colors

 

[MAReefer1]

You meen like these softies?
http://www.ianskipworth.com/photo/pcd1742/soft_corals_26_4.jpg

or something like this?

 

[Moe_K]

Nah, those pics are of corals that are almost certain to die in a reef tank.

 

[MAReefer1]

jw... Why cant you keep them succsesfully in a tank>?

those ones are so sweet looking

 

[Moe_K]

See Borneman's book, page 136.
Dendronephthea are bigtime plankton consumers. They mostly live in caves, hanging from the roof. They want a constant current bringing them more plankton.
You can try to keep them in a tank dedicated to them. They'd require a constant drip of plankton and solid current. The water quality in that tank would be pretty bad. Just about everyone who has tried has failed.

 

[MAReefer1]

O...I see, they have such nice coloration,

 

[Moe_K]

Has anyone seen one of the corals I mentioned in the first post?

Are these even available from wholesalers?

 

[scavdog]

Found some German site with nice softies

Scleronepthea

 

[scavdog]

latin name:


Litophyton sp.

common speech name:


Soft Coral

appearance:


Indo Pazifik, Indonesien, Fidji, Rotes Meer, Salomon Inseln,

temperature:


75.2 °F - 80.6 °F (24°C - 27°C)

food:


Plankton, Zooxanthellen / Licht,

recomended tanksize:


22 gal (~ 100L)

diffeculty:


3 - Hard

 

[JohnK]

I'm one of those people who have decided to focus on softies.

I've been trying to collect colorful softies for some time now. I think that in general you see a lot of 1 in a million (or thousand or hundred) examples in the books but overall it's tough to find really colorful soft corals. They do exist, but they are a lot harder to come by. It's easy to find a colorful acro, but bright and exciting sofites seem pretty rare?

On a side note, I wonder if there isn't a bit of a marketing/supply and demand issue here. People will pay big $ for super colored acros, I don't know how many people are really invested in stocking fantastic softie displays? It may be that if word gets out that people would pay $$$ for exceptional softies the collectors / importers might make more of an effort to find/harvest them. Then again that sort of trend might encourage the overharvesting of rare corals?

$.02

jk

 

[scavdog]

latin name:


Stereonephthya

appearance:


West Pazifik, Brasilien, Karibik, Ostafrika, Indischer Ozean,

size:


7.87 " - 9.84 " (20cm - 25cm)

temperature:


73.4 °F - 82.4 °F (23°C - 28°C)

food:


Plankton, Staubfutter,

diffeculty:


4 -

 

[dz6t]

Colorful zoos are much easy to find

 

[cougaran]

I have mostly a softie tank, with a few sps.. Mostly because of PC lighting.. But I've strived to go with different colors. My latest *nice* find was the screaming green tree coral I picked up at the last meeting. Mostly when dealing with softies you get pinks, purples, Browns. With zoos and ricordeas you get a range of different colors. I was able to recently pick up a wht leather and i missed getting a yellow one. So there are ranges of colors in softies, you really just have to look hard. But, I would love to see more soft coral availability.

 

[Troubleman]

Aquarium Gallery has been getting in the purple lemnalia.....first time I've seen it around....opens up quite large and keeps deep purple coloration.....I've now kept it thriving for 3-4 months now.

 

[Moe_K]

Sounds nice, you got a picture?

 

[Troubleman]

Shortly after lites on, not quite full open......

 

[scavdog]

I have always liked lemnalia. Very nice!

 

[cougaran]

Very nice indeed.. Is it a slow grower? I'd be interested when frags come available..

 

[Troubleman]

Seems to be slow.....only had it about 3 months. We shall see.