Waving Hand Anthelia (Anthelia glauca) Care Guide
Anthelia glauca is a hardy encrusting soft coral of the family Xeniidae with permanently extended pulsing polyps, suited to beginner reefs.
Overview
Anthelia glauca is a soft coral of the family Xeniidae, an octocoral whose polyps each bear eight pinnate tentacles. It grows as an encrusting mat with permanently extended polyps that wave in the current. It is a hardy, fast-spreading coral that draws most of its nutrition from photosynthesis.
Taxonomy
- Class: Octocorallia
- Family: Xeniidae
- Genus: Anthelia
- Scientific name: Anthelia glauca
- Authority: Lamarck, 1816 (WoRMS accepted)
Habitat
The genus Anthelia is distributed across the Indo-Pacific, where these octocorals colonise hard substrate on reefs. In aquariums the coral readily spreads across rockwork, so it is best given an isolated rock to prevent overgrowth of neighbours.
Tank requirements
- Temperature: 24-26 °C (75-79 °F)
- pH: 8.1-8.4
- Salinity: 1.024-1.026 SG
- dKH: 8-11
- Calcium: 380-450 ppm
- Magnesium: 1280-1350 ppm
- Nitrate: below 15 ppm; Phosphate: below 0.1 ppm
- Lighting: 50-150 PAR (medium)
- Flow: low
- Minimum tank age: 3 months
Feeding
Anthelia is zooxanthellate: it hosts symbiotic algae and derives most of its energy from photosynthesis under adequate light, so it requires no target feeding. Dosing of amino acids may support growth, but the coral generally thrives on light alone in a stable reef.
Compatibility
Passive and reef-safe; it has no stinging tentacles and is safe with fish and shrimp. Its main risk is its own vigour: it can spread over and shade out slower corals. Keep it physically separated from other sessile invertebrates.
Propagation
It spreads by encrusting growth and can be propagated by cutting and relocating colonised rock fragments, which readily attach and continue spreading.