Blue sympodium (Alcyonium verseveldi)

Blue sympodium (20mm frag plug/small 20mm til

Our soft corals will actively be growing onto the frag plug or rock rubble of their own accord, not simply glued onto plugs once cut. We leave all our softies 8 weeks to fully attached their stems to substrate before selling.

Description:

One of our favourite soft corals! Not seen in the hobby until around 8 years ago when a few were imported to the UK. This is a funny one regarding naming. It is actually an Alcyonium species and displays the characteristic dainty, Intricate, polyps as seen by these species. Unfortunately when imports of it first arrived in Europe, the incorrect US naming "Sympodium spp" was adopted. This name is now ubiquitous with this coral in the hobby.

When closed, the bright blue songe like mat defies what it is hiding. Often looking like no more that a blue smear on a frag plug/rock , you could be forgiven for assuming it is just a bit of a blue sponge. It is however quite the wonder that sonething so small can expand and open into such a wonder.

Intricate, serrated polyps emerge from the sponge, completely hiding it. The classically 8 tentacled green polyps sport a piecing royal blue center, almost looking like a miniature goniopora.

Really easy to grow once settled and despite its growth speed classed as non invasive as aside from loosing the 'battle' to almost every coral it grows up against (meaning it is easily kept at bay) it simply peels off rockwork with the utmost ease from its spongy mat should you wish to remove it.

Absolute king as far as gap filling corals go in our opinion. We love to grow between macro algae in our macro algae dominant show aquaria, providing the perfect backdrop to showcase algaes.

Also a far better 'classier' alternative to the vulgar, invasive bright green of Green star polyps!

Size

Expanded and open the frags will cover most of the 20mm frag plug. However please be aware this soft coral shrinks unbelievably small during shipping and often looks little more than a smear of blue sponge on the plug on arrival! As an example we have a huge rugby ball sized colony in one if our display aquaria. When we remove this ti frag it shrinks down to batey tennis ball size!!!

Care

Undemanding under normal reef conditions however cantaje a while to settle and open fully after shipping. Lower light results in better contrasting, larger polyps, where high light can results in much smaller, tighter knit polyps that are a light teal colour, with little contrast between centres and tentacles.

Growth

Moderate to fast

Minimum polyp count per frag

Not applicable