Sinularia brassica (Cabbage Leather Coral)

Source: liveaquaria.com

QUICK STATS

• Care Level: Easy
  
• Temperament: Semi-aggressive
  
• Lighting: Moderate to High
  
• Waterflow: Medium to Strong
  
• Placement: Top
  
• Water Conditions: 72-78° F, dKH 8-12, pH 8.1-8.4, sg 1.023-1.025
  
• Color Form: Tan
  
• Origin: Fiji, Indo-Pacific, Maldives
  
• Family: Alcyoniidae
  
• Insert Date: 11 May 2011

The Cabbage Leather Coral is also referred to as Flat Leather Coral, Flower Leather Coral, or Carpet Coral. It is found in a variety of colors, usually tan to brown with lighter striations. Its flat, lobed appearance resembles a cabbage leaf.
It is semi-aggressive and needs space between itself and other corals in the reef aquarium. Some species are toxic to stony corals. It is very easy to maintain in the reef aquarium and makes an excellent coral for the beginning to expert reef aquarist. It requires medium to high lighting combined with moderate to strong water movement. Fluorescent lighting should be combined with actinic lighting. For continued good health, it requires the addition of strontium, iodine, and other trace elements to the water.

It is an encrusting coral that will reproduce easily on its own in the reef aquarium by budding (splitting off a portion of its base).

Cabbage Leather Corals contain the symbiotic algae zooxanthellae and receive the majority of their nutritional needs from the light driven process of photosynthesis. It will also be beneficial to supplement the diet with additional food such as micro-plankton, baby brine shrimp, or foods designed for filter feeding invertebrates.

Yesterday I went to pick up a piece of Cabbage leather coral from a city mate from the Nederlands en Belgisch Zeewater forum, called bawaruba. When I got there I was amazed by his aquarium, it was a fully automated 1000 litre aquarium that was supported by 2 sumps that both have a capacity of another 1000 litre. It all looked very professional with the way everything was placed.
His cabbage leather grows very well, and he had a big rock that he had to remove due to lack of space. I first thought it was going to be a big Cabbage leather, but it seemed to be a big rock with couple of smaller cabbage leathers on it. Even better, since now I could use part for the crab tank.
Together with the Cabbage leather rock I got a small piece of sps, yet unsure of the species.


Using a chisel I broke the rock in 5 parts (well actually more but 5 parts of cabbage leather). 4 of them are now on the reefrack in the frag part of the small aquarium. Maybe one will move to the Red Sea Max, we will see what happens when we start rebuilding.

Because of the bad values in the small tank I moved this piece to the RSM where it will hopefully recover.