I still have trouble believing it's an echinata. It was imported around the time when anything with tubular corallites was dubbed an echinata. I've only seen two echinatas that I would say are the real thing.
Regardless, this piece, colorwise, is freakin' awesome. It's one of the bluest, if not the bluest piece in my tank :wink:
With the photo, I would say it looks just like a young Acropora tortuosa, (Oregon Tort) which would fit the color description as well. A very nice and expensive piece. I have tried them a few times, but never had any luck keeping them. The longest i was able to keep them was around 2 months, and I was directly feeding it cyclop-eze. Unfortunately, that piece died when i had a PO4 problem. Anyways, good luck raising your new baby! If it gets big enough, send some more pics, or some frags for that matter
It's very different than the Oregon Tort. I placed them side by side, and most of the corallites are at least twice the width of the Oregon. The blue's a bit different, too. The Oregon's blue seems to glow. Whereas, the Jesus Echinata has a very deep saturation of dark and light blue.
I dunno, Unarce, it really looks like a piece of Rob Becker's blue tortuosa (the original blue tort, circa 1996 to 1999 or thereabouts) to me. If I remember correctly it had fairly large coralites as well.
If you want I could try to dig up a photo of the one I kept several years ago. Took me about a year to grow it from a 1" fragged branch to a 3" fragged branch with a couple of 1" branches coming off of it. Slowest growing SPS I ever had.
I had a Becker Tort next to it, also, before I traded it away. Comparing frags probably isn't the most reliable way to go, but the structure and color seemed different. I do have to consider the fact that the person I got the Becker from has been known to exchange fakes.
If you really want to ID, pick up a copy of "Staghorn Corals of the World - A Revision of the genus Acropora" by Carden Wallace. It'll only set you back around 2 bills, but it's second to none as far as acro ID goes Gimme a ring next time your in the Bay Area, I let you skim thru it Karl
NO, not rare, but it rarely hits Ebay or CR. There's quite a few people searching those sites daily for this book (had three people tell me they do daily searches for it, yesterday at RAP). Got mine new off Amazon from the UK. Make sure you ask the seller prior to buying if the CD-Rom is included or not. I made the mistake of reading the description and NOT asking, hence I have no CD-Rom