So they said it was a Brain Coral... is it?

Siberwulf · Sep 1, 2021

The LFS said this was a brain coral, but the length of the sweepers at night is pretty intense. It's about 1" across, but the sweepers (not pictured) are approximately 5" long.

sunken3 · Sep 1, 2021

i am no coral expert, but the brains i am used to are maze/brain corals.. i suppose that could be an open brain (trachy)..

MaxTremors · Sep 1, 2021

‘Brain coral’ is such a generic and ambiguous term that it’s essentially meaningless. A ‘brain coral’ could be literally hundreds of different species in dozens of different genus/families of corals. Your coral is a Favia, which is often referred to as a ‘brain coral’. They can have long sweepers and can be pretty aggressive (one of the most common Favias in the hobby is called a ‘war coral’.

Siberwulf · Sep 2, 2021

MaxTremors said:
‘Brain coral’ is such a generic and ambiguous term that it’s essentially meaningless. A ‘brain coral’ could be literally hundreds of different species in dozens of different genus/families of corals. Your coral is a Favia, which is often referred to as a ‘brain coral’. They can have long sweepers and can be pretty aggressive (one of the most common Favias in the hobby is called a ‘war coral’.

Well crap.

Siberwulf · Sep 2, 2021

Ok, now that I've slept on it...what do folks usually do with these? I'm tempted to return it to the LFS, not asking for a refund. I don't want future corals to have to deal with this, sooooo how do others keep these in a tank and not have them take everything else out?

DrZoidburg · Sep 2, 2021

Keep it you might like it in the end. Just give it a space between others.

Siberwulf · Sep 2, 2021

DrZoidburg said:
Keep it you might like it in the end. Just give it a space between others.

I know this is probably a "depends" answer, but how much space? He seems to be able to extend roughly 5x his size, which if I let him take over this rock..will be like half the tank.