Leather Coral

About

Found on tropical reefs across the South China Sea, Lobophytum mirabile is a sessile soft coral belonging to the leather coral group. Slow-moving animals that anchor firmly to hard substrate and spend their lives filtering the water column and hosting photosynthetic zooxanthellae. Much of what we know about this particular species in the wild comes from survey work done around Taiping Island in the Spratly archipelago, which gives you a sense of just how remote its natural range is. In the aquarium, leather corals as a group are generally regarded as forgiving choices for newer reef keepers, and this species follows that pattern, asking for moderate light and moderate water movement rather than the demanding conditions that push many coral keepers to their limits. Like other lobophyllums, it will periodically coat itself in a waxy film as part of its natural shedding process. A behavior that sometimes alarms newcomers but is completely normal. Give it stable water quality, reasonable flow to carry away that shed material, and enough space that its mild chemical defenses don't irritate neighboring corals, and it tends to settle in and grow steadily over time.