Kenya Tree Corals?

Hey everyone,

I'm boywithafishtank, and today i wanted to ask you guys about the Kenya Tree Coral. I've always loved soft corals, since i really like their look, and sandish to pinkish coloration. I currently own a Cladellia finger leather, and its one of my favorite corals, next to my Frogspawn and Montipora. I really like the fact that you can see all of those polyps sticking out, and their incredible growth rate. I've heard that kenya trees are very quick growers, and easy to take care of. I really love growing corals, that grows fast. It just seems more fun. I also like the Kenya trees growth pattern/shape and coloration. Its definitely a coral that would look great in my nano reef tank. Anyway, i've heard some people, who simply cannot keep these corals in their tanks, and it really makes me wonder. I wanted to ask some questions, just to make sure that i can care for them properly. It seems more reasonable than just putting them in.

Questions:
- So i've read alot around the internet, looked at Liveaquaria.com and many other places, but i dont really find any valuable information, that i dont already know. Is there something that you often dont hear about this coral, but is very important to keep it alive? If so, please tell me
- The growth rate? My cladellia has been growing quickly, which is a little unusual for finger leather corals. Its fingers are gigantic, and its "foot" is spreading out everywhere on the rocks. I wanna know how quickly your kenya tree corals grow, and how easy they are to keep
- The aggression? I've heard that they often tend to spread out, ALOT. And therefore, they will sometimes spread, by dropping a branch, and the branch will float somewhere else, and settle and grow. I've heard that they have a pretty mean sting. Have you had your kenya tree corals killing other corals? Do note, that i of course wont get it to close to any of my corals. I never keep corals tightly packed i guess you can say
- Amount of flow? Some people say that they have them thriving in medium flow, and some people also report having succesful growth rates at high flow. I wanna place mine in a pretty high flow area, probably 3 inches away from my pump. Can they thrive in such conditions? Atleast i know, that with this stream of flow, there will come lots of copepods, plankton and amphipods, since they breed in my refugium, and some of them comes through the pump and into the main tank. I often see pretty big sized amphipods floating around in the water, and my fish loves them
- Food? I've heard people that say that they feed them Marine Snow and Cyclop-eeze. I feed my fish regularly with Cyclop-Eeze, and feed my SPS, mushrooms, frogspawn and finger leather some Marine Snow once or twice each week. Do note, that i want these corals to grow pretty fast, so i will give them the right amount of nutrition to grow well.
- Lighting? I have some pretty intense lighting on my tank, and its going to be placed at the top of the tank, at the same level as my frogspawn and GSP's. (They are growing fantastic by the way).

So that was pretty much it. And if you could help a kenya tree beginner like me i would really appreciate it! Feel free to come with some tips

 

My only comment is that it will easily take over a nano. They are fast growers as mentioned, and so you would not have long before that was all you can see.

 

this coral is very easy to care for, often so easy that many aquarists label it as a pest as it can easily take over a tank under the right conditions.

 

Haha, i'm planning on selling them again, so i have no worries about that xD

 

That sounds wicked! I really like fast growing corals, and i can sell them for quite abit over here in Denmark. A piece that is 6 inches, i can roughly sell that for a little over 10$, so its a little way of making some money. All local fish stores buy them too, so thats awesome

 

One of my favs, hard to kill, looks nice, but once they really become a pest you start to hate them

 

Haha Just a quick question. For the propagation, what do you do there? Do they have that poison in they flesh like for example toadstool leathers have when you cut them up? Also, do you just clip of some of the branches and put them somewhere else?