Cyphastrea Coral

The most famous probably of all Cyphastrea strains, the meteor shower Cyphastrea .

Latin Name: Cyphastrea
Family: Merulinidae
Origin: Indo PacificAustralia , Vietnam, Carribean
Category: LPS
Care Level: Beginner
Temperament: Peaceful
Lighting: Low – Medium
Waterflow: Medium
Placement: Low – Medium
Colors: So many different types
Growth Speed: Fast

 

Cyphastrea coral is commonly found in reef aquariums because of ease of care! They are easily recognizable colors by their tightly clustered corallites.  They are almost all encrusting corals, which means they will grow onto rock or substrate with the exception of the rare branching cypahstrea. This rare variety is slower growing than most encrusting cyphastrea and is almost always red.

Cyphastrea will encrust almost any surface.

Cyphastrea coral is incredibly hardy and grows super fast for more reefers. They come in almost unlimited color variations, the more bright and strange verities can fetch some high price tags. They are super easy to frag as well and propagate. Many aquarium keepers like to collect the different types. It generally likes lower to medium light and their amazing color can really be appreciated under strong blue led actinic lighting.

An amazing example of party crasher cyphastrea

Cyphastrea does not have any sting but can easily be stung by other corals it grows into. They also can not grow with one another, they will usually form a growth line if they meet each other buy you want to plan ahead with coral because of its fast growth rate. We recommend placing them on rocks that are easy to move so in the future if they grow like nuts you can easily remove the rock and frag it down.

Cyphastrea are photosynthetic and do not need to bed. They do well under most lightening conditions but we grow ours here under led. Par of about 100 is the sweet spot for these corals but they can tolerate much lower and slightly higher. Striking colors are still observed under even low lighting conditions.

Medium is flow is recommended for best results as they can easily accumulate detritus if they don’t get enough flow.