Leaf Coral

Pavona frondifera

Also known as Frond Coral, Cactus Coral, Pavona

SaltwaterCoral

Leaf Coral (Pavona frondifera) — NPS Photo - Eva DiDonato · Public domain

Care at a glance

Temperature: 75–81°F (24–27°C)
pH: 8.1–8.4
Adult size: 9.8 in (25 cm)
Minimum tank: 20 gal (75 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Solitary
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Beginner
Breeding: Easy
Rarity: Common
Reef safe: Reef safe
Origin: Indo-Pacific, on shallow reef flats, slopes and turbid lagoons, common through Southeast Asia and the western Pacific
Family: Agariciidae

Overview

A beginner-friendly branching Pavona that adds height and texture to a scape, breaking up the flat lines of plating corals. It grows best under moderate light and medium to high flow, which keeps detritus from collecting between the crowded fronds. It has only short sweepers, but the fronds spread and thicken over time, so give it space to open up. Feeding is optional and it lives mainly off its light, though it will accept fine foods like rotifers and minced mysis. It is often sold under the same leaf and cactus names as other Pavona, so confirm the scientific name if you want this exact branching form.

In the wild

Pavona frondifera grows on shallow reef flats, slopes and turbid lagoons through Southeast Asia and the western Pacific. It forms clusters of thin, upright fronds that branch and split more irregularly than the neat stacked plates of its relatives, giving a colony a busier, more tangled outline. In the aquarium it wants moderate light around 100 PAR and medium to high flow, placed on lower or middle rock where the fronds get good water movement without sitting under the most intense light.

Good to know

Pavona frondifera belongs to the family Agariciidae, the lettuce and leaf corals, whose polyps sit in wall-less corallites joined by ridged septa into a continuous surface. It is a zooxanthellate reef builder, powered mostly by the symbiotic algae in its tissue, and its thin fronds carry that tissue over a large surface for the light it captures. Its branching, frond-like growth is more fixed than the flow-driven shape shifting seen in the plating Pavona.

Did you know

Where most Pavona build neat overlapping plates, frondifera splits into a thicket of irregular upright fronds, which is why the same colony can read as chaotic next to the tidy walls of its cousins.