Rough Feather Coral

About

Rough feather coral (Ctenactis echinata) is a solitary stony coral from the Indo-West Pacific, found across a wide band of tropical ocean from the east coast of Africa out to the central Pacific. In the wild it inhabits reef slopes and lagoons, typically from shallow water down to around 40 meters. What sets it apart from many reef-building corals is its free-living, elongate form. Rather than attaching permanently to substrate, it rests on the reef as a single large polyp with one central mouth. The skeleton is heavily textured, with well-developed septal teeth and costal spines that give the surface a noticeably rough, ridged appearance. Coloration is usually brown, which is understated compared to flashier reef inhabitants, but the sheer physical size of a mature specimen, potentially well over two feet long, makes it a genuinely substantial presence in a display tank. For a large-polyp stony coral, it is considered accessible to newer reef keepers, appreciating moderate light and lower flow rather than the intense conditions some SPS corals demand. Giving it enough open space on the sandbed to accommodate its adult size is the main planning consideration before adding one to a system.