Brain Coral (Favia)

Care at a glance

Overview

Despite looking like a harmless dome, brain corals are moderately to highly aggressive and send out stinging sweeper tentacles after lights out, especially at nearby SPS. Leave 4 to 6 inches of clearance on all sides. They respond well to small meaty foods once or twice a week when their tentacles are out. Propagated by cutting the skeleton.

In the wild

Favia and the closely related Favites are massive, boulder-forming brain corals from reefs in the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean, with a maze or honeycomb pattern of ridges and valleys. They do best in low to moderate light around 50 to 150 PAR with moderate, indirect flow. Place them on the sandbed or lower rockwork with room to spare, and acclimate them slowly to light. Keep temperature 24 to 27 C and pH 8.1 to 8.4.

Good to know

Favia and Favites are large polyp stony corals in the family Merulinidae, often hard to tell apart because they differ mainly in whether neighboring corallites share walls. They are photosynthetic but feed actively at night, extending feeder and sweeper tentacles after dark. Both are known to sting neighboring corals.

Did you know

A brain coral that looks completely peaceful during the day can quietly reach out with stinging sweeper tentacles at night and burn a neighbor several inches away.

Related species

• 

  War Coral

  Favites

  9.8 in (25 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Candy Cane Coral

  Caulastraea furcata

  7.9 in (20 cm)11 gal (40 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Honeycomb Coral

  Goniastrea

  7.9 in (20 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Maze Brain Coral

  Platygyra

  9.8 in (25 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Meteor Shower Coral

  Cyphastrea serailia

  9.8 in (25 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Oxypora Chalice Coral

  Oxypora lacera

  9.8 in (25 cm)26 gal (100 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)