nepthya

[bjh024]

i was wondering if anyne has kept nepthya sp. i would appreciate feedback on husbanry tips or just your opinion on keeping nepthya

[MikeP]

I have a yellow nepthea in my 215. It initially died back some and I have it well established now but it grows very slowly - I have it midway in my tank growing off a vertical rock face in strong indirect flow. They are prone to being finicky intitially and don't ship well in many instances. Also nepthea is chronically misidentified - often you will get a non photosythetic coral instead. Mine has been doing 'ok' now for about 9 months but again growth seems sloooooowwwww.

[Brett Wilson]

I recomend doing an extremely large amount of research before considering a nepthea. You can't keep most of them from what I remember, but I have seen a couple of them that you can keep.
It's aggrivating to see fish stores and hobbyist trying to keep non-photosynthetic corals like the dendronepthea. I have never heard of these having anything more then a 1% survival rate.

[manny]

Those guys are really hard to mount also if they're not mounted already

[MikeP]

Also be careful of 'lemnalia' I have seen a lot of stores sell corals labeled as lemnalia that are in fact scleronephyta or some other azooxanthellate coral.
Soft corals are really really hard to ID properly since their sclerites vary with location and most cannot be easily extracted or viewed without proper tools and microscope.