Does anybody else keep Merulina? (1 Viewer)

[frankc]

I was curious if anybody else keeps these and what their experience has been with them. LiveAquaria lists it as "difficult", but Julian Sprung lists it as 7 out of 10 on his hardiness scale (he lists bird's nest as 6, which surprises me). In my experience it just takes a very long time (as in several months to a couple years) to fully acclimate and be happy.

I got this one a little over 4 years ago, among the first corals in the new tank. There were times I wasn't sure it would make it, but it has really taken off the last year or so. The relatively flat area on the right side that looks somewhat like an ear is all new growth.



Last September I decided the first one was successful enough to try another, fancier variety that had purple edges and neon green centers. I really thought I was going to lose this one for a while, but it eventually came back and now looks fairly healthy, but still waiting for the purple color to come back.

 

[steveb]

What type of flow do you have them in?

 

[frankc]

They are on the bottom of the tank with the big LPSs, so it's relatively low flow - basically what bounces off the front glass from the return pipes.

 

[steveb]

Those are nice. Another one I was kind of into before the big dino explosion/crash was Lithophyllon. They are kinda rare as well. Not a lot of folk typically have them.. I had a nice 3x5 one I got from Brian (3CC) stupid dino's...

 

[frankc]

Thanks. I had to look up Lithophyllon - they look pretty cool, some of them kinda remind me of Leptoseris.

Yep, dinos are no fun. I seem to have finally traded mine for bubble algae and cyano - not much fun there either.