Home Large Polyp Stony Corals Turn Your Reef into a Fireworks Display with our Galaxea Corals for Sale Online

Turn Your Reef into a Fireworks Display with our Galaxea Corals for Sale Online

Galaxea is an aggressive but devastatingly pretty LPS coral that adds color and hypnotic motion to any reef tank. Native to the Indo-Pacific, Galaxea features stalked polyps crowned with brightly colored feeding tentacles that are usually green but occasionally other colors as well. If there was ever a coral that resembled the dazzling finish of a large fireworks shell, it would be Galaxea for the shape and vibrant colors of the polyps, the shape the colony takes on as it grows and the way the polyps seem to burst open when buffeted back and forth by the flows on a reef. Fittingly, one of the more popular names is starburst coral, for this very reason.

Galaxea Coral Care Guide

Experience Level

Galaxea is not a good candidate for beginners, as it is a very aggressive coral that sends out sweeper tentacles at night that can extend a surprising distance from the colony. Making matters worse, these tentacles pack quite a punch when they encounter just about any living thing in range. If you have some experience with corals and you’d like to add one of our online Galaxea frags to your reef tank, they’re not particularly difficult to keep but make sure you have plenty of space around the frag now and in the future as the colony grows.

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:

Galaxea thrive under just about every kind of reef lighting and tend to prefer being in the middle or upper portion of the rockwork. However, if you have a shallow display or lighting that can penetrate well into the display, you may have success by placing your Galaxea frag near the bottom of the rockwork or on the substrate.

Water Flow Preferences:

Galaxea coral colonies like flows that are strong enough to animate the polyps, deliver food and remove waste. They respond well to shifting, laminar flows and can withstand stronger flows as long as they are not sustained. Flows that are too strong can cause the polyps to withdraw into the skeleton to protect them from damage.

Placement Considerations:

As we mentioned, place your Galaxea frag well away from other corals, clams and other sessile invertebrates or they will get stung and injured eventually. When planning the overall look and composition of your reef tank, consider placing Galaxea on a separate rock to prevent its mesentery filaments from harming pretty much anything that can’t move out of reach.

Feeding Considerations:

Although Galaxea is a zooxanthellate coral with symbiotic algae in its tissue, the colony will respond well to supplemental feeding with appropriately sized foods. If the polyps are extended, just release some food where the flow will carry it to the polyps and watch the tentacles deliver it to the oral disc. However, only feed once or twice a week and plan on testing your water quality often!

Dazzling and Electric Online Galaxea Coral Frags from CoalFrags.com

If you have the space and cannot resist adding one or more of our Galaxea frags to your collection, we understand. They’re some of our favorite corals going way back and we love everything about them. We also love carefully inspecting each frag one last time as we’re packing them and sending them off to our customers. We just know they’re going to dig seeing them expand after acclimation and catch the current. We have for years. Thanks for looking!

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