Plate coral on the sand right?

Is it the consensus that a plate coral should always be on the sand? My blenny kicks up a lot of sand and sometimes it gets all over the plate. Seems like if they are supposed to go on the sand then they should have some way of cleaning this off, but I feel like I'm always using the turkey baster. It also looks like the sand is starting to irritate the edge of the plate.

 

It is best to put the plate on the sand. If you have a smooth flat rock it should be OK there.

 

+1 sand unless you have a flat smooth rock.

How big is your tank? can you keep it far away from the blenny?

 

I would be very careful of the sand getting on the plate. If you have a FLAT rock that would be better. Plate corals can be badly irritated and even killed from sand being on them.

 

Not really. They're physically able to shed large amounts of sand, to the point where they can be buried under 6+ inches in the wild and make it back out unharmed. Look at their skeleton (radially ridged) and the tissue for proof; they have channels that are built just for removing sand from themselves. Trachys and scolys don't do so well with sand, but plates are really cool with it.

The place where they live in the wild is all sand, and they don't do well on sharp rocks at all. I wouldn't risk putting it on the rocks at all TBH.

 

Mine got extremely irritated from the sand being covered on the edges (I was gone for a couple days) the whole edge looked extremely irritated...just my personal experiance
JJL

 

It was likely irritated from something else (bristle worm?), or because it couldn't remove the sand. They're definitely ok with getting sprinkled, as my jawfish used to get quite a bit on mine and it never had much of a problem with it. I know they're the common coral that's best built for living on the sand, so if any common coral belongs there, its these guys.

 

+1 mine gets sand on it all the time from my diamond goby and sheds it... it's been doing fine for over a year now.

 

why not stick it on a flat piece of acrylic/pvc ontop of the sand? just enough where the sand doesnt touch it and you wont have tons of critters underneath it.

 

The edges would need to be smoothed out really well. Their tissue is pretty sensitive to tearing because of the way they expand and contract frequently. Also, it would need to be a pretty large piece, far bigger than the coral itself, to stay under it, as they actually "walk" around the tank.

They actually reccommend to surround it with rocks so it can't move and cause havok. I recommend the same, except I would be very careful to pick rocks without sharp edges.