Coral Spotlight | Pavona

Common names: cactus coral, lettuce coral, potato chip coral

Difficulty Level: Pavona is one of the most forgiving SPS corals.

Feeding: Pavona has extremely small polyps and only the ability to capture the smallest items. Feeding is not usually needed in a well lit reef.

Lighting (Level 6 to 10): These corals easily adapt to all medium to high light conditions, and they do it relatively easily. Less acclimation is needed, but care should still be taken.

Water flow: Moderate to strong flow is needed to keep these corals clear of debris. Growth patterns will range from tightly forming vertical chips to mainly encrusting depending on flow patterns with tighter forms thriving in higher flow conditions.

Placement: Pavona is a very peaceful coral and should be placed away from others with more aggressive tendencies. Keep in mind their unique growth forms when placing them.

General: These are slow growing but very unique corals. They are easily cut in to fragments, and their resistance to disease makes them a good choice for the first time SPS propagator

https://captivecoral.net/portfolio/pavona/

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Pavona Maldives may be a lesser seen species, but it's by far my favorite type of pavona. It amazes me a bit that they're even consider part of the same general as other species given the huge differences. I'd even go so far as to place maldivensis in the large polyp stony category while standard potato chip variants are very obviously small polyp stonies.

Either way, it's an amazing and durable coral that should be considered for every reef tank.

Let's see who has a nice colony of this one growing out...

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