Home Large Polyp Stony Corals Lush, Beautiful Online Catalaphyllia Elegance Coral Frags for your Reef Tank

Lush, Beautiful Online Catalaphyllia Elegance Coral Frags for your Reef Tank

If there ever was a common coral name that truly reflected the coral itself, it would be the elegance coral or Catalaphyllia coral. Elegance coral is one of the prettiest LPS corals, as it has large, fleshy polyps, which can be red, purple, green and other colors with brightly colored tips. Another LPS coral native to the Indo-Pacific region, Catalaphyllia jardenei’s colors come from the photosynthetic zooxanthellae living in its tissues. These symbiotic algae provide the host coral with glucose and other nutrients and when the polyps are fully open and animated by the inflows and powerheads, the effect is strikingly pretty and hypnotic.

Elegance (Catalaphyllia) Coral Care Guide

Experience Level

Elegance coral frags are fairly easy to care for, provided you have had some success with introductory corals and have a cycled, well-maintained system.

Optimal Water Quality Parameters

  • Temperature: 72-78F, 22-25C
  • pH: 8.1-8.3
  • dKH: 7-11 (125-200ppm CaCO3 equivalent)
  • Calcium: 375-450ppm
  • Magnesium: 1275-1350ppm
  • Salinity: 35ppt
  • Ammonia (NH3): less than 0.1ppm
  • Nitrite (NO2): less than 0.2ppm
  • Nitrate (NO3): less than 0.2ppm
  • Phosphates (PO4): less than 0.03ppm

Lighting Preferences:

Catalaphyllia tend to do best in the middle of most reef displays, with lighting that is neither too dark or too intense. Your best bet is to start your Elegance coral frag in the lower-middle part of your display to acclimate it to your lighting and then slowly move it higher over time.

Water Flow Preferences:

Just as with lighting, Elegance corals prefer shifting flows that are neither too strong nor too mild. Today’s controllable powerheads make this fairly easy to achieve. Start off with softer laminar flows and then slowly ramp it up, paying close attention to polyp extension.

Placement Considerations:

Elegance corals take on quite a bit of water during the photoperiod and can swell to twice their size at night. To prevent damage to nearby corals, provide plenty of room around your Catalaphyllia frag so it can grow and expand over time without stinging the other inverts in your collection. Also take care to make sure that as the polyps grow, they don’t get close enough to a powerhead to get sucked into it.

Feeding Considerations:

Elegance corals readily accept small pieces of wet protein, such as brine shrimp, mysis, and other frozen foods, along with very small chunks for clam, shrimp and fish. As always, take care not to overfeed your Cataphylllia, no matter how much fun it is to feed!

Healthy Catalaphyllia Coral Frags from CoralFrags.com

If you’ve been envisioning how beautiful an Elegance frag would look in your display, please browse our collection of online Catalaphyllia frags for sale and buy with confidence. All our corals are kept in professionally maintained life support systems with optimal water quality. Healthy corals start in our tanks before they thrive in yours. Thanks for looking!


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