Pink Maze Platygyra

Description

Platygyra grows as a low dome covered in winding, maze-like valleys, and this one carries a soft pastel pink across the ridges. It is an LPS that does well under moderate light and gentle to moderate flow, and it keeps its shape without much fuss once it is placed. A good pick if you want texture low in the rockwork instead of another branching coral.

Care Guide
Platygyra, commonly called Maze or Brain Coral, is a hardy LPS with a distinctive maze-like ridged surface. It thrives under low to moderate lighting and gentle to moderate flow, and its coloration intensifies with regular feeding of meaty foods.

Placement: Open sandbed, away from direct flow — tissue inflates and can be damaged by strong current or contact.

What to expect when it arrives

Brain corals arrive with tissue pulled tight against the skeleton and the corallite structure showing clearly. Float the sealed bag 15 minutes, add a little tank water every few minutes for 15 to 20 minutes (no long drip needed), and place the coral low in moderate light and moderate flow. Tissue inflation returns over one to three days.

Placement, and the aggression nobody plans for

These are among the most aggressive corals in a mixed reef and almost nobody accounts for it when placing them. Favia, Favites, Platygyra and their relatives send out sweeper tentacles at night that reach several inches past the daytime footprint and will chemically burn whatever they touch. Judge spacing by what the coral does after lights out, not by how it looks at noon. Four to six inches of clear space in every direction is a sensible minimum.

Feeding and growth

Brains take small meaty food readily and thicken visibly for it. Feed two or three times a week after lights out when the feeder tentacles are already extended and the coral will take food without a fight. Growth is steady rather than fast — expect the colony to encrust outward across its base over months.

Common trouble

A bare patch or dark stripe spreading across the dome is usually mechanical damage from a neighbor rather than disease. Check sweeper range before treating for anything. Skeleton showing between corallites with no obvious cause generally means light that is too strong for where the coral sits.

Compatibility

Excellent for a beginner on husbandry, difficult for a beginner on placement. They will win almost any exchange, so the risk is to the neighbors rather than to the brain itself.