Cabbage Leather Coral

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep it in a 150 liter or larger reef with moderate to bright light and moderate to low flow, gluing the base to rock. Hold temperature 24 to 27 C, pH 8.1 to 8.4, and stable salinity. It is a hardy beginner soft coral that needs no target feeding, though trace element dosing helps it grow. Like all leathers it uses mild chemical competition, so keep carbon running, but it is gentler on neighbors than the finger leathers.

In the wild

A soft leather coral that grows close to the rock on a short stalk and folds into large fleshy lobes shaped like cabbage or lettuce leaves. It is often cream, tan, or bright green, with a firm, ruffled surface studded with tiny polyps. The broad folded lobes give it a very different look from the finger leathers. It forms a low, spreading mound rather than tall fingers.

Good to know

Sinularia dura is a soft coral in the family Alcyoniidae. It is less chemically toxic than its relative Sinularia flexibilis and has been kept alongside sensitive corals without the same harm. It runs on symbiotic zooxanthellae and grows a leathery colony reinforced with tiny skeletal spicules.

Did you know

Its stiff cabbage-leaf folds can spread into a wide green ruffle that becomes a centerpiece soft coral, and it stays much tamer toward tankmates than its toxic cousin flexibilis.

Related species

• 

  Flexible Finger Leather Coral

  Sinularia flexibilis

  11.8 in (30 cm)40 gal (150 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)

• 

  Devil's Hand Leather Coral

  Lobophytum

  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)