by Justin Credabel | Aug 26, 2013 | Corals, Science, Sustainability
There has been an overlooked yet vitally important organism living in our reef aquariums. I’d like to introduce to the hobby a group of very important critters they have been unknowingly growing for... by Dan Rigle | Aug 21, 2013 | Corals, Eye Candy, Photography
This hardy colorful Acropora is a true captive grown coral. It has been grown from a seed fragment originally purchased from Atlantis Aquarium and all the current growth and mass was realized in artificial sea water and under artificial... by Dan Rigle | Aug 20, 2013 | Corals, Eye Candy
The beautiful and hardy stoney coral, Montipora undata. This coral is the beauty that gets little attention these days but was very popular several years ago. It was believed to be an encrusting type of stoney coral and I still frequently see it advertised as... by AquaNerd | Aug 19, 2013 | Corals, Eye Candy, Industry
You would be hard pressed to find a more visually appealing soft coral in all of the aquarium hobby than the new ORA Vargas Cespitularia, whose commercial availability has only just been announced. This latest addition to the vast library of ORA aquacultured corals was donated by the world famous Tony Vargas, who gave them a couple of frags two years ago. The coral has thrived in ORA’s systems, demonstrating a level of hardiness that is much appreciated in the captive world, but nobody was sure about the coral’s identity, at least up until the experts were brought in. Because identifying corals isn’t always a walk in the park, ORA sent samples of the Vargas Cespitularia and a few others to coral expert Michael James of AquaTouch in Arizona. Michael took a very thorough approach to properly identifying the coral, using various microcsopic techniques to measure sclerites and other morphological features. He eventually landed on the species Cespitularia erecta while at the same time highlighting the difficulty in identifying corals, especially when it comes to factors like coral coloration and geographical distribution. If you would like to read Michael’s paper, here is the PDF found on the ORA website. There are plenty of images detailing the morphological features that Michael viewed during the ID process. by Dan Rigle | Aug 14, 2013 | Corals, Opinion, Tanks
A few weeks ago I posted a blog with two acropora corals growing peacefully together and I wanted to get a part two up for when the opposite occurs. This is somewhat unpredictable and death can occur even when very similar corals and species are... by Dan Rigle | Aug 12, 2013 | Corals, Eye Candy, Photography
Acroporas such as the Red Dragon started becoming popular a few years ago, but it took some time for the craze to catch on. Many of these deeper water species acroporas tend to be fragile when first imported and take a great deal of acclimation and care to realize...
