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.
Compiled by Aquairi from published sources · Published · Updated
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.
Anthelia glauca Propagation Guide
Overview
Anthelia glauca is a soft coral in the family Xeniidae (genus established by Lamarck in 1816). Known as a waving hand coral, it carries permanently extended polyps on an encrusting base and, like its xeniid relatives, spreads as a mat across the rockwork rather than forming a discrete colony.
Reproductive Mode
Propagation is asexual. Anthelia grows by encrusting outward from its base, so the colony expands across the substrate on its own; new attachment points form where the advancing tissue contacts fresh rock, in the manner typical of the Xeniidae.
Fragging / Asexual Propagation
Because the coral grows as an encrusting sheet, fragging is done by cutting a section of the mat, ideally along with the small piece of rock or rubble it has encrusted. That rock-backed cutting can then be moved to a new rock or plug; banding it in place gives the encrusting tissue a surface to spread onto, as bare glue is easily shed by xeniids.
- Cut a section of the encrusting mat with scissors or a blade.
- Take the piece of rock or rubble it has encrusted.
- Band or set the rock-backed cutting onto a new rock or plug.
- Keep it in low flow until the tissue spreads and anchors.
Conditions for Propagation
Low flow and stable mature water help the cut mat re-establish and encrust the new surface. Isolating the colony on its own rock keeps the encrusting spread contained, since it can otherwise creep over neighbouring corals.
Common Challenges
The encrusting habit that makes Anthelia easy to multiply also makes it spread quickly across the rockwork. The main task is containment: prune the advancing edges and keep the colony physically separated from slower corals.