Cyphastrea Corals! Mind Blowing Colors! | Coral Care Guide

what's going on reefers Blaine here as you can see back in the farm facility and you know what we're doing today as you saw by the title of the video We are continuing on with our Coral Spotlight Series today we're going to be talking about a group of corals that was hinted at in our underrated Coral video but they haven't gotten the Limelight that they should we haven't talked about the overarching group so today we are going to be talking about castria corals and all the awesome ones we have aquacultures I will say I am sick and tired of everyone saying that some corals don't matter I will die on this hill every Coral matters we're going to Showcase them all that we have here at TSA so let's do what we do best let's make our rounds around the farm talk about some of the Care requirements for these corals then let's showcase some of our favorites let's Dive In [Music] a keystone species to building out reefs in the world is castria corals these are Stony corals known to be in the LPS group and they're widely found in areas of Australia and Indonesia these are some really cool corals that come in mainly three different varieties of the encrusting variety the branching and variety and also the plating variety the branching and the plating variety are not nearly as well known in the Hobby and we keep a lot more of the encrusters here at TSA castria corals come in a wide range of colors and morphs and so these can be some really nice corals to add into those lowlight areas we're talking about a coral yet again that likes to hang out in areas from anywhere from 50 to about maybe 150 pushing into 200 par these are once again corals that we can work our way up into higher intensity but they're going to be utilized in shaded areas and they're going to like a a little bit lower par when it comes to the intensity of your lights in your reef tank it is unique to see though that in some of our systems here you can see a lot of the castria that are actually a little bit higher in the setup and they're getting a little bit more power so we are pushing a little bit closer to that 200 par number but overall though most reef tanks castas are going to be seen in those lower shaded light areas all right I'm going to stop real quick before we get into more of the Care requirements of castray I wanted to say only about 25% of you guys are actually subscribed to the channel that's almost 75% of you guys that are watching right now have yet to hit the Subscribe button so be sure to click the Subscribe button down below and join in on the topshelf aquatics YouTube channel family when it comes to flow for these corals it's a little unique in how they develop and how they grow out these are some corals that encrust and can kind of form some interesting cup up colonies so it's really important to make sure you're giving them indirect flow and there's no way that trius can build up over time so when it comes to the flow for these Corals in general it's going to be anywhere from low to medium flow but it's important that indirect flow is happening or occurring over these corals to ensure that that buildup isn't happening and it's important too that there's some flow happening around the corals as well so they can reach out and grab any of the different foods that are going to be actively seen in the water column we just mentioned these corals snagging food in the water column and we'll talk really quick about feeding these corals when it comes to feeding our castria here at the TSA Farm we're not doing any direct feeding we're not killing the flow to directly feed our castas but what we are doing is with our gigantic systems we have here and what we're feeding on the daily basis of our phto Reids benex mixture aminos all those good things there's going to be some food in the water column that these sihastria corals can grab up themselves so indirectly we are feeding these corals all the time but we're not doing any direct feedings to them all right we've gone over the overarching care requirements for our castria corals let's make our rounds in the farm let's check out some of our favorites and let's see what TSA has been hiding up for their [Music] castria a really awesome one is our TSA Tropicana twist it goes without saying the splitting of the colors on this Coral is really amazing and the orange and yellow pop goes so well with one another one of the encrusting varieties we have here at the farm on the yellow side there's some really nice accents of green shown and if you look closely on the orange side the green can be seen within the pops if you're looking for a good conversation piece Coral the TSA Tropicana twist will really get people talking the wwc Bizarro CCI faster right off the start showcases some really amazing pops out of the castria we have here at the farm this specific strain showcases some of the largest pups the blue base with the pink and orange pops creates a really awesome contrast as this Coral grows out once again another encruster that we are showing off here near the rim of this Coral though you can see some amazing colors starting to have a nice bleeding effect that can really be awesome when you take a closer look at it the TSA South Beach has those Miami Vibes and colors and is another awesome saster we have growing out here the turquoise transitions into green and the coloration of the PPS with the purple bleedout really makes this Coral worth having a frag in your reef at home the pops can be fairly large on this one as it matures and grows out into a colony but overall though the TSA South Beach is quite the castria we have talked about some of our encrusting sihastria here in the farm let's take a look at our branching variety that we carry the pink branching castria is obviously unique in how it grows out but the pink coloration is quite lovely too intermixing this Coral with other branching varieties of corals can be really cool and also can sneak in a little bit of fun for this castria when most reefers look at it they'll have no idea and it's something completely different entirely a similar concept with the Tropicana twist but this is a Jason Fox fender bender sihastria which shows off silverish blue with peppermint red as well another awesome encruster that can be a real stunner if it gets the chance to grow out into a colony not the last SCI fast tra that we have here at TSA but it's the last one we wanted to highlight while we're walking [Music] around I said it once and I will continue to say it I am going to Showcase and give all the love to every single group of corals we are actively aquac culturing here at TSA I'm really excited too because coming up here in the middle of January January 16th through 19th we're going to be making a trip out to Southern California if you guys are in the LA area be sure to reach out to us either by email Instagram leave a comment down below but we're looking for amazing tanks that we can tour so let us know down in the comments we'd love to stop by and showcase your tank on our Channel but overall I had a ton of fun talking about catria corals here in today's video if you guys have enjoyed this one be sure to like subscribe and hit the Bell notifications so you don't miss out on any future upad was [Music]