It’s been a while since we started getting creative with aquarium ornaments and corals, but nothing makes you look twice more than an ornament with a tight skin of encrusting Cyphastrea. For a long time, ceramic skulls were the ornament of choice but now our coral encrusting escapades have stretched to Easter Island statues, female figurines, and Groot.

Ornaments can be adorned with virtually any coral from rapid spreading Pulsing Xenia and Green Star Polyps to Torch polyps and Acropora, but its the bright contrast and large, bright polyps of Jingle Bells, Meteor Shower, and Bizarro that really stand out for all the right reasons.

Getting started

Not any ornament will do, so speak to a potter who knows and understands frag plugs and get them to make your ornament from the same material as the plugs, and bake it at a high temperature. Soak it in RO water, ICP test it to make sure it’s clean and doesn’t leech any nasty elements, get some reef glue, and a Cyphastrea frag, and you’re ready to go.

Coverage can be sped up by fragging a colony and spreading the bits over the ornament, but apart from that standard reef aquarium LPS coral care guidelines apply. If it’s a Mohawk hairstyle you want for your skull, try the branching Cyphastrea decadia and trim accordingly.

Tag us with #reefbuilders on Instagram to show us your creations.

Do you ever regret not buying a coral? We were scrolling through our phone pictures recently when we were reminded of two “Favia” which were on sale when we worked in a wholesaler’s. There we dealt with thousands of corals on a daily basis with colorful Euphyllia glabrescens being the biggest sellers by far, and if a coral didn’t pop, or sway in the current, few retailers, and even fewer of their customers were interested in them. That was the case for these two Dipsastraea – interesting to the staff because they were subtly colored and patterned, yet a difficult sell for most marine stores. We were struck by them, however, their difference in pattern versus others of their kind, and we so wish we had bought them. 

The green one stood out for its neat but widely spaces corallites, khaki green background color yet little explosions of red and yellow around the mouths. The other one had a muted purple base color with splashes of khaki green around the corallites, and red mouths with yellow centers. They came in cultured from Indonesia and eventually they were bought by an aquarium store. We’ve seen some with similarly colored and patterned mouths since then but they’ve been much gaudier and more fluorescent, more forgettable, and less distinct than these two that we took a shine to. Being maricultured, they should come through again, or hopefully, the original colonies are alive and well somewhere, even maybe now living on as frags. They didn’t have hyperbolic trade names so it will make their search more difficult, but for now, they will remain the two toned-down Dipsastraea speciosa that got away… 

The reef aquarium hobby has always had some degree of obsession with any new or unique coral strains and varieties. It’s therefore no surprise that when reefers first started discovering irregular patches of color in SPS corals like Acros and Montis we inevitably became very curious about this phenomenon of protein infection that is colloquially referred to as ‘grafting’.

We’ve dabbled in many examples of corals with pigment grafting including the Green Jacket, A. suharsonoi, Splash Astreopora, and currently working with the high profile Rainbow Splice Acro and a unique bicolored colony of Hero coral. Needless to say we have more than our fair share of experience with GFP Infection in various groups of corals and after more than two decades since it was first documented, we are no longer that excited for (most) corals which exhibit this curiosity.

The reason for our excitement fizzling out is that the fluorescent protein infection is highly unpredictable and in most cases one color will always dominate the other one, resulting in a solidly colored coral colony. Sure you see these pictures and classic examples of a dramatically swirling grafted cap with a perfect ratio of two colors contrasting wildly but these examples are few and far between and invariably take a lot of ‘managing’ to encourage this kind of bicolored development in a single coral.

It’s precisely this variability that makes GFP infected corals exciting but it also means that there’s a wide range of values associated with certain strains like the Rainbow Splice Acropora. Everyone wants a frag of the ‘Splice with an even blend of both colors in the hopes of growing out a perfectly streaked specimen like the one we featured on video a couple months ago, but there’s still no guarantee of how the coral will grow.

One of the newest protein infected coral strains is the Slime Time Montipora digitata from Eye Catching Corals which is a red branching Monti with green fluorescent pigment (or maybe the other way around). We’ve tried growing out this bicolored SPS coral several times over the last couple of years and every time the colony grows mostly green branches  with a little bit of red pigment remaining at the base, just like the header image at the top of this article.

Short of constantly pruning back every green branch that grows out we don’t know what we can do to attain a single colony of digitata where the branches are 50/50 red or green, or better yet, an erratic mix of both pigments throughout each branch. If you’re really into it the GFP infection of corals can be an awesome and interesting aspect of biology to tinker with, experimenting with fragging and actually grafting pieces back together, but you shouldn’t pay a premium for these oddities unless you appreciate that the coral will probably become a solid color if left to develop unattended.

Over 20 years after becoming the first in-situ (Ocean Farm), licensed coral farm in Indonesia, Bali Aquarium has done it again, becoming the first ex-situ (inland) licensed coral farm in Indonesia to obtain export quota for these corals. It’s been a long bumpy road of trial and errors to develop the techniques and building up the regulatory system to frame this new Indonesian coral culture industry. 

But Bali Aquarium is now certified and licensed to to export 26 genera/species produced in their land farm which is a great news for the whole industry and could help fill a gap from the the not-so-great news we’re getting from Australia wild coral collection fisheries.

Good news for the Aquarium industry

Our industry need some good news, and having a company closing the loop and extending possibilities of farming in the original main coral supplier is actually a milestone for our industry. The health of coral reefs around the world is rapidly deteriorating, and since we love corals, we don’t want any fingers pointed our direction regarding our impact on wild reefs, specially when other solutions exists.

A long and complex administrative road:

This is where the challenge lies – Since the only coral farm regulation existing were from the in-situ Mariculture industry, the farming method was forced to follow the same framework, developed for in-situ Mariculture. Keeping brood-stock colonies, which is not too expensive in-situ but becomes prohibitive in ex-situ aquarium systems. Also a proper traceability systems, using numbers, tags, reports… also inspired from the mariculture.

A simple yet very efficient method:

One way to reduce cost of coral production in land based aquariums systems is achieved using the Triton method, and avoiding regular water changes since getting good quality natural sea water becomes a problem in dense urban area with heavy rain fall during the wet season. 

Indonesian Coral industry reloaded, 2.0:

Ex-situ (Land based) mariculture is the perfect match to In-situ (Ocean based) mariculture. While Ocean farms allow to produce quickly at a lower cost a lot of corals, some corals needs are so specific that it becomes sometime almost impossible to attend them in the ocean: High Flow, High Swell, Deep…

Ex-situ farms have also a long list of complementary advantages too.
– Some species just grow better in controlled environment farms than in the ocean farms.
– Ocean farms are subject to climate change fluctuation, that can wipe out a whole farm within a single day or few weeks.
– Smaller fragment sizes, less bacterial infections, controlled competition and predation, less algae, no butterflyfish and other coral predators.
– Coloration is stable and will not change when reaching its final destination.
– Already adapted to aquarium conditions, lighting, water quality parameters, artificial coral food…
– Very healthy, less stressed animals that don’t need to adapt to Aquarium conditions
– Reduced risk of parasite hitch-hiker.

Obviously, not all corals can be suitable for expensive husbandry methods used in ex-situ farming. Only the most valuable and rarest corals can be economically grown using coral culture aquariums. These techniques are already used almost all around the coral world, and it’s very good that it finally can be used also in the original coral region. Ex situ farming is part of the future, and we hope that many other companies will embrace it all around the world.

The rarity of certain coral strains is completely relative but there’s ten times more species that reefers have never seen in the aquarium hobby that are completely absent from coral lover’s radar. The central Pacific Ocean is bigger than the planet Mars which leaves a lot of room for corals to grow and exist far away from the limited coral collection locations and we encountered many such Scleractinian novelties in our time diving around Kwajalein Atoll.

But today’s unknown coral species is Montipora dilatata, documented by Ryan Rash in one of the most remote coral reefs of the entire Pacific Ocean. Palmyra Atoll is an unincorporated US territory that is over a thousand miles from Hawaii with a tiny land area so the ecosystem is dominated by its reef habitats but is also home to many seafaring bird species.

The remoteness of Palmyra Atoll makes a great refuge for the flying wildlife but it is also one of the most untouched virgin coral reefs in the world, harboring a cornucopia of reef life including many coral species that we would just love to encounter for ourselves. Ryan’s photographs actually focused on the unique corals he saw in Palmyra are a virtual passport to the mostly unknown Montipora dilatata which is unlike any Monti species that reefers might be familiar with.

The reef aquarium hobby enjoys a wide range of Montipora species with purely branching growth forms and with strictly plating growth forms, sometimes with a little bit of both morphologies but Montipora dilatata develops an indeterminate growth form that is a blend of both. The thick tiers are not continuous and somewhat separated as if to evoke a more branching growth form that approximates the Leng Sy Cap‘s green base and purple edged rim.

This kind of super dense, ultra thick growth form is expected from Montipora growing in the 4 meter shallow depth where this impressive Montipora dilatata was observed but we have no doubt this species would greatly transform under dimmer and lower energy conditions of a reef aquarium, not to mention the flattering blue-heavy lighting. There are over 85 species of Montipora currently recognized with many more yet to be discovered or recognized as unique but for now we can definitely look towards exotic coral reef regions of the world for inspiration as to what other species we might one day enjoy in our aquariums. [COTW]

We’ve seen the ‘grafting’ phenomenon of different fluorescent proteins infecting a wide range of SPS corals including Acropora, Montipora, Stylocoeniella and even Turbinaria but the new grafted Anacropora from Reef Raft are the first of their kind. It’s only quite recently that the reef aquarium hobby has seriously started to enjoy more colorful strains and species of Anacropora like the Green Goblin and red TNT Anacropora and a smattering of less common orange or blue strains so it’s quite exciting to know that their colors can get remixed like we’ve seen in related SPS corals.

Reef Raft experienced this unique natural sharing of fluorescent pigments by naturally growing their yellow Goldenrod strain alongside the more common red TNT Anacro and low and behold, some of the red protein of the TNT anacro found its way into the tissues of the yellow goldenrod for a color motif which is very popular in so many corporate logos. We’re very excited to learn that these Anacropora are just as susceptible as other stony corals to cross pollination of their protein colors and it sure doesn’t hurt that this genus is famously non aggressive towards their neighbors.

With this precedent in place we’re keen to discover whether the reciprocal infection can be induced – if the yellow fo the Goldenrod or the green of the Goblin can infect the red TNT Anacropora, or if we could encourage the very common Goblin strain to accept fluorescent proteins from their closely related Montipora coral cousins. It will be very interesting to see how fast these newly enhanced Anacropora develop and how the colored proteins affect their growth rate because the green strains – so far- do seem to grow a heckuva lot faster than their red and orange counterparts.

 

Setting up a reef tank can be a lot of work – getting the whole system right where you want it in terms of the placement, rock scape, lighting, flow, chemistry levels, not to mention gear selection to get your reef where you want it, and there can be a lot of challenges along the way. But we tell you what, once a reef tank reaches a certain state of stability and equilibrium and you’ve ironed out most of the kinks, getting down to the curation of live corals can be hella fun and very rewarding. 

It can take as little as three months or sometimes up to a couple of years, but once you’ve got a stable reef tank it’s either time to add some fancier corals, remove and thin out some of the initial starter corals, or in our case a little bit of both. As you might have noticed from a handful of our latest videos we’re elbow-deep in polyp work, retouching the placement of different corals, grafting some of the faster growing stony corals, and generally steering this coral reef spaceship towards a more mature layout with a different succession of reef building scleractinia. 

We’ve already cut the Red Dragon Acro and Milka Stylophora down to size, making way for some nice, thicker branched and brightly colored Stylophora strains to populate and take over most of the furthest bommie in the Waterbox Peninsula reef tank. All year long we’ve been growing out several frags of differently colored S. pistillata strains and they’ve finally become nice miniature colonies ready for promotion to their well deserved placement and on prominent display. 

We’re somewhere around halfway through curating the overall coral-scape of the double sided peninsula reef tank but man does it feel rewarding to finally be placing corals where we want to watch them grow for the next couple of years. It’s taken us a pretty long time to get to the point where both the reef tank and our cinematography skills dovetailed into these reef-working videos but we really enjoy bringing them to you so you can look forward to many more in this style in the coming weeks and well into the next year. 

Thin branching Montipora are among some of the fastest growing small polyp stony corals in the world and many varieties and species have become quite prolific in the reef aquarium world. Recent years have seen a greater interest in the closely related Anacropora which have been discovered in a wide range of colors and morphs and these can grow every bit as fast as their thin branching Montipora relatives. 

If you have but not the other, it can be quite challenging to really see where Montipora ends and Anacropora begins because you’d be hard pressed to really spot the minute differences between these different genera. This confusion is further exacerbated in the red strains of TNT Anacropora and the Manilla Spy Montipora but we are fortunate that our LFS AquaticArt in Highlands Ranch, Colorado has an exquisite culture of both SPS species growing side by side where we can really see the macro and micro differences . 

Side by side the first thing we notice is that the Anacropora is more red in color while the Spy Monti is more of an orangey red but the biggest difference is in the growth form, branch shape and texture. Overall the TNT Anacropora is more spiny in appearance with irregularly shaped branches that taper to a sharp tip, but the ‘skin’ in between the polyps is quite smooth. By contrast the Spy Monti has a much more textured surface with branches that are pointed outwards but terminate in a much blunter tip than the TNT Anacropora. 

Both of these thin branching Anacropora and Montipora are quite tolerant of surprisingly low light levels, they both require higher nutrients (~ 20ppm NO3) to get the deep saturated colors and while the Anacropora is stronger than it looks, the Montipora is one of the most delicate stony corals we’ve ever grown with branches sometimes simply falling away when pulled out of the water – it’s frustratingly brittle! 

Without too many examples to compare with we’re not confident about identifying Anacropora to the species level but it’s come to our attention that the Spy Monti which was once known as Montipora hirsuta but this name is now synonymous with an older name, Montipora carinata. Together with the red polyped bubblegum or forest fire Montipora samarensis, the red Spy Monti and Anacropora are some very fast growing and hardy species of red branching SPS corals which are becoming more commonly available in the reef aquarium hobby and an excellent choice for all but the brightest of reef aquariums. 

 

Ultra Coral Australia, the famous Australian coral business owned by master coral collector and farmer Nic Dos Santos, just showed us some pictures of a Cyphastrea coral that blew our mind!

Multicolored Cyphastrea are quite a common sight. But this rainbow multicolor, green, gold, blue, red is just the craziest Cyphastrea we’ve ever seen. Nic chose to name this coral Acid trip Cyphastrea and we perfectly understand why?

Cyphastrea is a poorly understood genus of corals belonging to the Merulinidae family. According to morphology study, It’s so far composed of 9 different species. But according to DNA experts, it’s only 2-3 different clades. So they are quite difficult to ID properly, and still a lot of controversy surround them. Cyphastrea are close relatives to Echinopora, and ID them to the species level requires looking deep into the skeleton, and counting septas or tentacles. Which is difficult to do on these photos, and live specimen.

Nevertheless, what was initially collected on a deep, very dirty inshore reef, by 30m (90ft) of water over a year and half ago, as a common red/orange Cyphastrea. Turned out to become under Nic’s care one of the most insane piece of coral we’ve ever seen. There are several strains of ‘multicolor’ Cyphastrea, mixing 2 different colors, with perfectly separated color borders. What is special with this one, is the rainbow style, all the nuances of colors that are between the red and the green, always in a unique pattern.

So far Nic’s got only 8 small frags that he’s keeping preciously and farming patiently to multiply them, in order to release them, to as many different people, as possible. As each piece is different, this particular coral as the whole package to become the Holy Grail of Cyphastrea!

Cyphastrea are the perfect aquarium corals, they grow fast, they color up beautifully, they don’t have many pest devouring them, and they do all this is not so strong light. The perfect aquarium corals, for the modest and beginning aquarist. They’ve been popular for quite some time now, but with the appearance of these new crazy strains we can expect their popularity to explode in the future.

On a recent dive on a deep reef in Indonesia, we noticed a very unique coral under a ledge. It was a very colorful specimen of Leptoseris foliosa with very unusual coloration unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. We had heard of cave dwelling Leptoseris, such as Leptoseris troglodyta that can survive in total darkness but hadn’t observed this in other species before.

The particular specimen we found was very colorful compared to these L. troglodytha. Living under a ledge in a turbid protected bay, around 75 feet (25m) deep it was exposed to a very small amount of light..But it’s the colorful endolithic algae that this coral is harboring that make it absolutely fascinating.

Although there are usually no zooxanthellae in the soft tissue, it contains green and pink/red shade-adapted endolithic cyanobacteria embedded in the skeleton, which have also been
reported from other species of Leptoseris. Enzymatic activity of carbonic anhydrase and catalase, as well as photosynthetic adaptations to low light level and low metabolic activity rates, enable the algae to grow in this unique habitat. They are considered skiophilous (shade-loving) or cavernicolous, i.e., living in caves.

Coral tissues and skeleton filter 93.98-99.5% of the ambient UV radiation and thus shade the endolithic algae from this potentially damaging radiation. Also the light amplifying mechanisms of the host improve photosynthesis of the symbionts. Light of short wavelengths is absorbed by host pigments which transform short into longer wavelengths and the transformed light is more efficient for photosynthesis.

In addition endolithic algae are largely relieved from grazing pressure by herbivorous fish therefore the coral skeleton provides a refuge to the endolithic algae from some of the environmental pressures normally experienced by free-living algae on the reef. Some studies have suggested that the endolithic algae located within the skeleton of the coral may be aiding the survival of coral species by providing an alternative source of energy somewhat like zooxanthellae, but this would need to be confirmed.

Another remarkable feature is that the cave-dwelling Leptoseris possesses parallel ridges on the sides of their septa, which are called menianes which help zooxanthellate Leptoseris corals to absorb sunlight more efficiently at greater depths. It would be very interesting to try to maintain this coral in reef aquarium, in a very dark part of a reef tank. Its metabolism is probably very slow, and we suspect it growth to be ultra slow which makes it a very remarkable coral.