Chinese Cabbage Coral

About

Chinese cabbage coral (Mycedium elephantotus) earns its leafy nickname through the way its colonies grow as broad, thin plates or encrusting sheets with a distinctly rippled, vegetable-like texture. The surface is covered with outward-facing, nose-shaped corallites that point toward the colony's edges, each rimmed by radiating ribs that can become quite elaborate on the corallite walls. All of which adds up to a genuinely architectural appearance in a reef tank. Coloration tends toward browns, greys, greens, and pinks, though many colonies show contrasting oral discs in green, white, or red, and the colony margins can carry their own distinct color band. In the wild this coral spans a huge range across the Indo-West Pacific, turning up from shallow reefs down to around 70 meters, typically in areas sheltered from heavy surge. Like most LPS-style plating corals, its tentacles come out after dark to feed, so it benefits from occasional target feeding in the evening. It does well under moderate light and flow, and it appreciates the same kind of calm, protected placement you'd give any thin-plated coral. Avoid direct blasting flow that can stress the tissue. A solid choice for intermediate reef keepers who want something with real structural presence beyond the usual encrusting forms.