Candy Cane Coral Care

 A unique blue variety of candy cane coral

Latin Name: Caulastraea

Family: Merulinidae
Origin: Indo Pacific, Australia
Category: LPS
Care Level: Beginner
Temperament: Peaceful
Lighting: Medium
Waterflow: Medium
Placement: Medium
Colors: Green, Purple, Teal
Growth Speed: Fast

Candy cane corals also referred to as trumpet coral, these names can be used interchangeably.  There are different sub species of Caulastraea and I find hobbyists will often refer to the larger ones as trumpet and smaller ones as candy canes. Regardless of the trade name they are very easy to keep and great corals for beginners. Healthy candy candy corals have fleshy heads and are usually open and don’t show any sign of skeleton or tissue loss. Although this is one the easiest lps corals to “save” and can be easily healed back to proper health with feeding. They require medium light and medium flow,  enough to bring them food and take away film and mucus on the coral. Make sure to give them indirect flow and never blast them with direct flow. We recommend placing them on low lying rocks or middle shelf rock work. They are easily glued down to the rock from their skeleton which is often dead, only the colorful end is the living part.

The grow in a bouquet fashion and grow quite fast in most reef tanks. Here at store many customers trade us back candy cane colonies they have grown out from frags they have purchased from us. They are easy to frag with clippers or bone cutters but you should try to frag as far away from the head as possible because sometime the Skelton can shatter. They have almost no sting and are relatively peaceful lps corals. Feeding is not necessary but feeding is highly recommended for better health and faster growth. We feed our candy cane corals reef roids which can be purchased here. They will already appreciate any other meaty foods we use vitalis lps pellets.

Purple with green center candy cane coral often found on the great barrier reef

A super vibrant radioactive green candy cane coral. They glow under blue actinic led lighting