Natural Reefs. Corals Sitting In Sand ?

[427HISS]

I just viewed a tank on youtube where a nice tank at Macna 2018, showed corals were placed on the sand. Looked real cool. On natural reefs, do they really sit on the sand ? LPS and/or SPS ?

 

[ca1ore]

Depends on the species. Elegance coral, for example, will do best in a lagoon tank with daylight spectrum light with the skeleton buried in the substrate. Most SPS grows up in the reef, not in the sand.

 

[427HISS]

Are there any charts showing where coral prefer to be ?
I know that SPS's are near the surface of the water, but what about LPS's, leathers, to mushrooms and others ?

 

[norfolkgarden]

Are there any charts showing where coral prefer to be ?
I know that SPS's are near the surface of the water, but what about LPS's, leathers, to mushrooms and others ?

Fungia and tongue plate corals move about on the sand. Tube anemones bury their feet in the sand.

Almost everything else needs rock (or some stable base) to attach to and grow up from.

Mushrooms and anemones can detach and move around with the current to a new location. But they will usually try to reattach to at least small pieces of rubble.