Caring for Trachyphillia in the Reef Aquarium

How to keep your brain (coral) healthy!

Unfortunately, due to the fact that Trachyphillias are generally known as beginner corals, the majority of hobbyists run into problems when attempting to care for this genus long term. Fortunately, these issues are generally correctable with some time and patience, and the information listed in this series can be applied to any stressed LPS coral. While beautiful, these LPS corals tend to be some of the most problematic "beginner" corals to keep, and this is due to several issues which I will be discuss ing in this multi-part series.

The first issue aquarists run into regards the lighting. Trachyphillias hate, and I mean hate, anything other than low light when first introduced into the aquarium. Unfortunately, the majority of reefers don't learn that for these corals any amount of direct light usually means their death, until it's too late and they have a bleached brain coral on their hands.

The type of lighting used in your reef aquarium is equally important. For some reason, Trachyphillia spp. corals seem to recover from a short time under too much light from metal halides or T5-HO's better than PC lighting in my experience. Even under lower light from power compacts, open brain corals tend to 'wash out' in color, which in my opinion is caused from the yellower light put out by PC's in comparison to most other reef aquarium lighting sources.

When first introducing a Trachyphillia into your reef tank, try to find a cave or a shaded overhang on your sand bed under which to place the coral. After it is comfortably expanding fully in your tank you may want to slowly, over the course of a few days, move it to the area in your sandbed where you'd like it to remain.

Another note is that Trachyphillias, and most open brain corals in general, do best on sand beds. On your tank's rocks they are prone to cutting their flesh when they try to expand, which leads to infections and the the coral eventually slowly wasting away. Even crushed coral substrates can cause problems with open brains.

My brain is hurting, what do I do?

The first thing to do if you see your open brain's flesh start to lighten is to immediately place it into the darkest part of your tank, preferably with only a small amount of ambient light. Try to feed the coral with mysid shrimp or small chopped meaty foods. It is generally a good idea to avoid brine shrimp since it has very little nutritive value.

More often than not, your stressed coral will need some time to be coaxed into feeding. To encourage it to do so, I recommend turning off all flow in your tank and very gently placing the mysid shrimp or small meaty foods directly onto the mouth of the coral with a turkey baster, making sure that the food remains there when you remove your hand from the tank. If you have any shrimp distracting them with food on the other side of the tank would be a good plan at this time.

Within the next 30 minutes the coral will hopefully open and eat the food. Repeat this process daily until your coral starts looking better, and then very slowly move it out into the light.

Sometimes corals simply end up wasting away. It's frustrating, but there's nothing you can do except take it as a learning experience for next time. More often than not, however, you'll end up with a healthy coral that you were able to save from light shock, that will in all likelihood become one of the favorites in your tank!

Continue to Caring for Trachyphillia, Part 2: Collection Location