How’s it going guys, welcome back to Tidal Gardens.
Today’s coral spotlight video is about Clove Polyps of the Genus Clavularia.
There are roughly 40 species in the genus.
Clove polyps are a soft coral which strictly means their polyp segments come in multiples
of eight as compared to stony corals that come in multiples of six.
For the purposes of this hobby however, stony corals are corals that build calcium carbonate
skeletons and soft corals do not.
Having said that, there are some grey area corals that don’t neatly fit into the “skeleton
slash no skeleton bucket.”
One such example is a pipe organ coral.
It is an Octocorallia soft coral that grows a distinctive red calcium carbonate skeleton.
Another example is, spoiler alert, the topic of this video.
Now, Clove polyps do not form a skeleton that is as obvious as a pipe organ coral, but they
do form a connected network of stolons from which their polyps extend.
You can see why the official classification of corals goes by the count of polyp segments
and not how stony or soft a coral is because it turns out that there are varying degrees
in-between.
Moving on, I have to talk about their growth rate.
The problem that I have with this coral is that the growth rate of the ones we normally
see are disappointingly slow.
It’s flowery, wispy appearance is reminiscent of fast growing soft corals such as Xenia
or Anthelia which exhibit explosive, near infestation-level growth rates, but cloves
are the opposite.
As a coral farmer, I have trouble keeping up with the demand for them because they take
so long to grow.
They are easy to propagate by separating out a group of stolons and gluing them down to
a new substrate, but it takes quite a bit of patience to let them grow out from that
point.
So long story short, I would have to dedicate a lot of space to them to have a sustainable
culture.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this video, there are many different species of Cloves
and it’s no surprise that there is one notable exception to this “slow grower” label.
There is a “Blue Clove” polyp that is very fast growing.
If you do a search online about blue cloves, most of the commentary centers around “how
to rid of them.”
Having said that, a fellow youtuber Rico’s Reeftank has used them in a very interesting
manner.
He basically let them cover every part of the rock as a de facto replacement to coralline
algae.
I always worry about coral aggression, but in his tank it did not seem to be an issue.
The result is a pretty cool effect because this tank is Acropora dominated which lacks
motion but the clove polyps on the rock provide a subtle movement underneath all these large
SPS colonies.
Now that we have gone over some background information, let’s cover some practical
care tips.
As for water flow, I like to provide these polyps with high flow.
Strong Flow provides two main benefits.
First, it blows the polyps around in a very pleasing manner.
Reef hobbyists often look for corals that sway in the currents and clove polyps are
a great candidate to do just that.
Second, the additional flow helps keep the colony cleaner.
The base of the coral is a network of stolons that can collect detritus if allowed to settle.
It is important to prevent the buildup of detritus at the base of the cloves otherwise
it can cause the coral to die back.
As for feeding, we generally do not spend a lot of time spot feeding this coral.
Clove polyps are photosynthetic so they will get the majority of their nutrition from the
lighting provided.
They are not a particularly light demanding coral.
Anything in the 50 PAR range is fine, and they may even be able to tolerate higher light
conditions provided they are acclimated slowly to the higher light intensities.
If you do want to proactively feed these corals, I like to either use the cloudy supernate
from thawing meaty frozen food such as krill, mysis, or rotifers.
I have also fed these corals using a mix of commercially available powered zooplankton.
Again, I personally do not go out of my way to feed clove polyps, but it is entirely possible
that additional feeding would help these corals thrive.
As with any feeding regimen, it’s important not to overfeed because causing a nutrient
overload is far worse than the coral not getting something to eat.
So who is this coral for?
Clove polyps can be a versatile addition to a number of different tanks.
They could work in smaller aquariums looking for a coral to provide motion that is not
particularly aggressive to neighbors nor will outgrow the tank in a month.
On the other end of the spectrum, you could use the blue clove variety of this coral that
runs rampant to create a beautiful blue background for your other corals.
I could see this coral working for either beginners or experts in the hobby depending
on what they are looking to accomplish.
Ok, that does it for my care tips of Clove Polyps.
So what do you think?
Can you come up with other ways that clove polyps can be used in a reef tank?
Post your thoughts below and I will see you all next time.
Happy reefing.