Devil's Hand Leather Coral

Care at a glance

Overview

Give it a 150 liter or larger reef with moderate to strong flow, moderate to bright light, and stable salinity near 1.025 with pH 8.1 to 8.4 and temperature 24 to 27 C. It is a hardy beginner soft coral that needs no target feeding, though it takes fine particulate foods. Leave open space around it because it releases terpene chemicals into the water and can sting neighbors with short sweeper tentacles at night, so run activated carbon and keep it clear of small stony corals.

In the wild

A soft leather coral that grows as a thick fleshy base topped with stubby lobes or finger-like projections, which is where the hand shape in the common name comes from. Colors run from cream and tan to olive green, often with paler polyp tips. It anchors to rock in bright, moving water and spreads into a wide colony over time. Small feeding polyps cover the upper surface and retract when the colony is disturbed.

Good to know

Lobophytum belongs to the family Alcyoniidae, the same soft coral group as the Sarcophyton toadstools. Like other leathers it periodically sheds a waxy surface film to slough off algae and detritus, going slack and closed for a day or two before reopening. It relies on symbiotic zooxanthellae for most of its energy.

Did you know

When it sheds its surface film the whole colony can look shrunken and sickly for a couple of days, which alarms new keepers, but it is a normal self-cleaning cycle.

Related species

• 

  Cabbage Leather Coral

  Sinularia dura

  11.8 in (30 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Flexible Finger Leather Coral

  Sinularia flexibilis

  11.8 in (30 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)
• Cauliflower Colt Coral

  Klyxum simplex

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

• 

  Colt Coral

  Cladiella

  11.8 in (30 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Toadstool Leather

  Sarcophyton

  11.8 in (30 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Finger Leather

  Sinularia

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