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Muricea austera is widespread in the southeastern Pacific on the coasts from Mexico to Peru, and the type locality was the Pearl Islands, Panama.
The lectotype is a bushy colony that was 20 cm long and 23 cm wide, with a brittle coenenchyma that was partially lost on some branches, and with mostly naked terminals.
Recommendation - the coral should be kept in a species-specific tank.
Feeding
Gorgonians do not have zooxanthellae and do not live off light. Azooxanthellate gorgonians do not host symbiotic algae that produce nutrients and energy through photosynthesis.
The pumps should be switched off before feeding. In order for the gorgonian to survive in the aquarium, each individual polyp must be fed sufficiently, i.e. daily or 3-4 times a week. Without feeding, the gorgonian will not survive in the aquarium. The polyps need a certain amount of time to absorb the food (granules or dust food (Ultramarin, Cyclop Eeze) or frozen food (lobster eggs, mysis)). If shrimp and fish are present, they will try to steal the food, so it is essential to feed these cohabitants beforehand.
Newly introduced gorgonian sticks can be stimulated with a liquid food, e.g., PolypLab Polyp, to encourage the individual polyps to open. Only then can feeding be carried out.
The better the individual polyps take up the food provided, the better the growth and reproduction rates will be.
Azooxanthellate corals eat suspensions, marine snow, microplankton, and other organic matter, which is their natural food.
The color of the colony is reddish brown.
The colonies branch and form a tuft-like structure or grow mostly in a Eben in some cases the anchorage extends for some distance along the substrate and forms many more branches in a fringe-like colony that in some cases grows upside down.
The polyps are orange to yellow.
Like all gorgonians of the eastern Pacific, Muricea austera is azooxanthellate.
Literature reference:
Graham Edgar Breedy O, Guzman HM (2016).
A revision of the genus Muricea Lamouroux, 1821 (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) in the eastern Pacific. Part II.
ZooKeys 581: 1-69. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.581.7910 - #.
https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=7910&display_type=list&element_type=8
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The lectotype is a bushy colony that was 20 cm long and 23 cm wide, with a brittle coenenchyma that was partially lost on some branches, and with mostly naked terminals.
Recommendation - the coral should be kept in a species-specific tank.
Feeding
Gorgonians do not have zooxanthellae and do not live off light. Azooxanthellate gorgonians do not host symbiotic algae that produce nutrients and energy through photosynthesis.
The pumps should be switched off before feeding. In order for the gorgonian to survive in the aquarium, each individual polyp must be fed sufficiently, i.e. daily or 3-4 times a week. Without feeding, the gorgonian will not survive in the aquarium. The polyps need a certain amount of time to absorb the food (granules or dust food (Ultramarin, Cyclop Eeze) or frozen food (lobster eggs, mysis)). If shrimp and fish are present, they will try to steal the food, so it is essential to feed these cohabitants beforehand.
Newly introduced gorgonian sticks can be stimulated with a liquid food, e.g., PolypLab Polyp, to encourage the individual polyps to open. Only then can feeding be carried out.
The better the individual polyps take up the food provided, the better the growth and reproduction rates will be.
Azooxanthellate corals eat suspensions, marine snow, microplankton, and other organic matter, which is their natural food.
The color of the colony is reddish brown.
The colonies branch and form a tuft-like structure or grow mostly in a Eben in some cases the anchorage extends for some distance along the substrate and forms many more branches in a fringe-like colony that in some cases grows upside down.
The polyps are orange to yellow.
Like all gorgonians of the eastern Pacific, Muricea austera is azooxanthellate.
Literature reference:
Graham Edgar Breedy O, Guzman HM (2016).
A revision of the genus Muricea Lamouroux, 1821 (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) in the eastern Pacific. Part II.
ZooKeys 581: 1-69. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.581.7910 - #.
https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=7910&display_type=list&element_type=8
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
