Pore Coral

About

Pore coral (Montipora altasepta) is one of those Indo-Pacific small-polyp stony corals that rewards a close look. Its colonies grow as clusters of thin branches, rarely more than six millimeters thick, that often fuse together in irregular, tangled arrangements. What really sets it apart is the surface texture: the corallites are mostly embedded in the skeleton but carry slightly projecting lower lips that give the whole colony a rough, rasp-like feel and appearance, almost like living sandpaper. Coloration runs toward the understated end of the spectrum. Brown or grey being the norm, occasionally with whitened branch tips that help it stand out on the reef. In the wild it occupies very shallow, protected reef slopes across a wide Indo-Pacific range, typically within the top three meters of the water column where light is intense. That natural habitat tells you what it expects in a tank: very high light and brisk, consistent flow. Like most Montipora species it demands stable, well-maintained water chemistry, which places it firmly in advanced territory. Thin-branched Montipora can be touchy about swings in water quality and don't recover quickly from neglect, so this one is best suited to an established, mature reef system with a keeper who has already worked through the basics.