Beginner LPS Mystery Pack – Torch, Hammer, Acan, Favia & Chalice

This is our Key West Beginner LPS Mystery Pack — five hand-selected large-polyp stony (LPS) coral frags, hand-selected at our discretion from our farm. Every box includes one torch, one hammer, one acan, one favia, and one chalice — a curated starter set of the most rewarding, forgiving LPS in the hobby. Packed and shipped from Key West, Florida.

About LPS Corals

Large-polyp stony corals are the sweet spot for new reefers: fleshy, vividly colored, and far more forgiving of light and flow swings than SPS. They reward stable water with fast growth and dramatic polyp extension, and most take direct feeding — which makes them fun to keep. Our frags are captive-grown, pest-managed, and already adjusted to aquarium life.

Care Guide

Beginner-friendly across the board; these corals reward stable water and moderate light with bold color and growth.

• Lighting: Low to medium — PAR 50–150.
• Flow: Low to moderate — gentle, indirect flow keeps the flesh clean without stripping it.
• Placement: Sandbed to lower/mid rockwork.
• Feeding: High — all five take meaty foods (mysis, small pellets, coral foods); target feed for faster growth.
• Aggression: Semi — the torch and hammer (Euphyllia) carry long sweeper tentacles, so give them a few inches of space from neighbors.
• Water Parameters: Temp 76–78°F, salinity 1.025–1.026, Alk 8–9 dKH, Ca 420–440, Mg 1300–1400. Stability matters more than exact numbers.

Ships UPS Next Day Air every Tuesday and Wednesday from Key West, Florida. Packed with insulated box and heat or cold pack appropriate for current conditions. Frags are carefully secured to prevent movement during transit.

Placement: Start low on the sandbed or lower rock in moderate light and flow; give the torch and hammer room to sweep.

Not sure how to keep it? See torch, hammer and frogspawn side by side in our Coral Field Guide — ID notes, PAR, flow, placement and aggression, next to the corals people mistake them for.

UPS Next Day Air · Live Arrival Guaranteed. See current rates, ship days and how a claim works.

What to expect when it arrives

Open the box the day it lands. A shipped Euphyllia arrives retracted, often with the tentacles pulled almost completely into the skeleton, and it can look alarming if you have not seen it before. That is normal. Float the sealed bag for 15 minutes to match temperature, then drip acclimate over 45 to 60 minutes. Do not add the shipping water to your tank.

Give it a low-flow, moderate-light spot on the first day and leave it there. Most torches and hammers begin partial extension within 24 hours and are fully open in one to three days. The single most common mistake is deciding after six hours that the spot is wrong and moving it — every move restarts the adjustment clock, and a coral moved four times in a week may never settle.

Placement, once it has opened

Watch the tentacle behavior rather than the PAR number. Tentacles should drift and sway with a slow rhythm. If they stream in one direction and stay there, flow is too strong. If they hang limp and short with the coral inflated, flow may be too weak. Adjust one variable at a time and give it three days between changes.

Allow six inches of clear space in every direction before you commit to a location. Euphyllia sweeper tentacles extend well beyond the daytime footprint after lights out, and the neighbor that looks safe at noon may be getting burned at 2 a.m. If you keep other Euphyllia, they generally tolerate each other, but torches will win any exchange.

Growth and fragging

A settled Euphyllia adds heads by splitting, and in a stable tank with occasional feeding you should see a head begin to divide within three to six months. Branching forms separate onto their own stalks and can be cut apart cleanly once the branch has elongated; wall forms are harder to divide and most keepers leave them whole. A colony that has not split in a year is usually reporting a flow or light problem rather than bad genetics.

Tank mates and compatibility

Keep it away from any coral it can reach. Peaceful fish are fine, but large angels, some butterflies and a few wrasses will pick at Euphyllia tentacles, and a coral that retracts every time a specific fish passes is telling you something. Clownfish will sometimes host in a torch; this is usually tolerated but can damage the tissue over months.