Sarcophyton is a genus of soft corals and is counted among the leather corals. The name "mushroom leather coral" gives away the special growth form - nomen est omen, a stem with a round umbrella. They are found throughout the Indo-Pacific, but species differentiation is usually not possible without microscopic examination of internal features such as the nature of their sclerites - calcareous needles that give structure to soft corals. They are not always easy to distinguish from Lobophytum, but usually have a rounder shape without outgrowths. Some species can reach massive sizes of several meters, but in the aquarium these are very rare. Special species are mainly Sarcophyton ehrenbergii with long, white or bright green polyps, Sarcophyton elegans from the South Seas, which are bright (but not fluorescent) yellow when exposed to a lot of light and low nutrients, and the species with green skin or bright green polyps from Australia and Indonesia. For the colorful soft corals to retain their color, they need strong lighting and low nutrient levels.
In principle, however, Sarcophyton are very robust and can cope well with poorer water values; they are then just not optimally colored. If Sarcophyton become too large, the umbrella can be trimmed with a ceramic knife or cutter or cut off completely. Pieces can then be attached as frags with the toothpick method - pierce a toothpick through the coral, and fix it lightly with a rubber band - on frag plugs, or impaled directly with a syringe needle, clamped in cracks, or laid out out on coarse coral rubble until they attach.
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