Home Large Polyp Stony Corals Our Platygyra Corals for Sale Online add Electric Colors and Texture to any Reef

Our Platygyra Corals for Sale Online add Electric Colors and Texture to any Reef

Platygyra is another of many LPS coral species that defy easy categorization and exemplify how imprecise these broad categories truly are. Also occasionally referred to as brain worm coral, a frag or two of this coral in a reef tank provides a very interesting and colorful contrast to the branching spires, lobes and polyps of other coral species. Platygyra species are native to the Great Barrier Reef and the reefs of the Indo-Pacific region and come in an array of different color morphs, with the ridges typically one color and the fleshier valleys of the colony another. Whether the coloration on our Platygyra frags is electrically vivid eye candy or subtler, beauty is forever in the eye of the beholder. It all depends on how you want to compose the coloration and texture of your reef display.

Platygyra Coral Care Guide

Experience Level

Platygyra coral frags are a good choice for beginning coralheads eager to start experimenting and achieving success with coral species. Although Platygyra is often listed as a beginner’s coral, great care should be taken when handling it, as the thin veneer of living tissue over the skeleton can be easily damaged, leading to tissue loss and bacterial infections.

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:

Platygyra tends to prefer lighting in the middle of the range: neither too intense nor too soft. After acclimation to (hopefully) your quarantine tank or reef display, choose a location somewhere in the middle of the water column and closely monitor how and if the living tissue of the frag takes on water and becomes more turgid. This indicator, along with the depth of color on the frag, is a key insight into how happy/unhappy the coral is with this spot.

Water Flow Preferences:

Platygyra do best in locations with medium shifting, laminar flows. On their native reefs, Platygyra planula (free-swimming larvae) settle on spots that provide enough flow to deliver zooplankton to the polyps and remove waste, without strong, direct flows that can damage the tissue.

Placement Considerations:

By its appearance, you might not think that Platygyra is a particularly aggressive coral but it definitely is. At night, the colony sends out mesentery filaments, or sweeper tentacles, to find food and sting neighbors encroaching on its living space. Leave at least a few inches of space around the Platygyra colony on all sides and closely monitor any neighboring sessile inverts for damage.

Feeding Considerations:

For better growth, feed your Platygyra coral once or twice a week at night, when its feeding tentacles are exploring. Turn off your powerheads and carefully place suitably sized coral foods near the colony and let them deliver the food to the polyps. As much fun as this is to watch, be careful not to overdo it or you could love your coral to death.

Clean, Healthy and Vibrant Online Platygyra Frags from CoralFrags.com

When buying online corals, the buyer always has to be leery and mindful of the possibility that their new coral frags also have hidden and unwanted reef pests that can ruin the joy of reefkeeping. We don’t want Aiptasia, nudibranchs, flatworms and other undesirable hitchhikers in our holding systems and we most definitely don’t want to introduce them to our customers’ systems. That’s why we carefully inspect each frag we sell several times, including right before shipment, to help ensure that our customers get the healthy, clean frags they want and deserve and nothing else. If we sound like the kind of online coral seller that you’d prefer to buy from, order a few frags today and buy with confidence. Thanks for looking!

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