by AquaNerd | Jul 25, 2014 | Corals, Science
The popularity of mushroom corals is on the rise, and thanks to corals like this, we can certainly see why. There has been an influx of rather brightly colored, fluffy looking mushrooms into the hobby over the last couple of years or so, and hobbyists are falling all over themselves to get them, often paying a premium for the best and brightest of the bunch (no real surprise there). At MACNA last year in Miami, we happened across some of these very shrooms, which had retail prices soaring well over $1000 a pop. Always on the cutting edge of the coral trends, Jason Fox shared these images of his Bounce Mushroom Coral over on Reef2Reef, which was sourced from World Wide Corals…hence the WWC portion of the coral’s name. WWC was the group who had these on display at MACNA 2013, but this particular coral is a standout from those that we came across at the show and even the ones we continue to see online. According to Jason’s post, this frag is the biggest he’s ever sold, tipping the scales at 2″x2″ with huge, orange “plumage”. The price is set at $1450 shipped. by AquaNerd | Jul 18, 2014 | Corals, Science
Who would have thought that mushroom corals would ascend up the ladder of corals in high demand? After all, they’ve been around forever, are virtually indestructible, reproduce like crazy, and are usually quite boring. Despite that, the hobby still surprises us with individuals like the one pictured above, a “Jawbreaker” variant of the the Discosoma mushroom. While the typical Jawbreaker is orange with hints of red, green and yellow, this super sexy mushroom from Sexy Corals takes it up a few notches with its kaleidoscope of colors. Called the SC Super Schroom, this coral sports orange, green, red, purple, and hints of blue. Besides what we can derive from the image, there is literally zero information on this particular mushroom. We don’t have a price tag (we probably don’t want to know), but we do know that it sold to someone in Texas. Perhaps it’s a fellow reef keeper in my area. by AquaNerd | Jul 17, 2014 | Corals, Science
We’ve seen some pretty awesome chalices in our day, but this one is probably going to rank right up near the top of our list of all time favorites. Called the Acid Patchwork Echinophyllia, this rainbow colored colony from Unique Corals is totally different from the other multi-colored chalices that we’ve come across in recent years. Undoubtedly, there has been a huge explosion of out-of-this-world chalices, but this one differs from the rest of the pack in that its colors look like they were dripped onto the coral canvas. Most of the chalices we’ve seen have a distinct separation of colors, but the Acid Patchwork piece blends and layers the colors so much better. According to Unique Corals, this maricultured chalice has been in captivity for several weeks, maintaining its ‘”acid-etched” conglamoration of color’ under LED lighting. The price on this insane coral was set at just under $1100, but it has been marked as “out of stock” on the site. by AquaNerd | Jul 15, 2014 | Corals, Fish, Science, Tanks
Coral fluorescence is one of the many mysterious things that draws aquarium hobbyists to reef tanks like moths to a flame. And it apparently draws a lot of divers to venture out on dangerous night dives as well. Armed with intense blue lighting rigs, the crew from FireDive Gear took to Masbat Bay in the Red Sea to view various marine organisms, and the resulting footage just blows us away. Demoed in the annotated short version above, the clip shows images of the corals during the day followed immediately by a video clip of each of the fluorescing corals at night. The list of animals featured in the video includes a Tridacna maxima clam, feather starfish, hermit crab, a handful of different fish, cuttlefish, octopus, and a neon green carpet anemone. While the video above is a couple of years old, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share its beauty with all of you. by AquaNerd | Jul 1, 2014 | Corals, Fish, Science
Hobbyists have have enjoyed performing numerous growth experiments on Monitpora corals, both encrusting and plating alike. While most of the tinkering has resulted in the blending two or more different colored individuals into one coral, which usually reverts back to a single colored coral, every once in a while something truly special pops up on our radars. Such is the case for The Digital Fishroom, who recently shared their Starburst Grafted Monti. According to the article, this is a naturally occurring pigment graft that has been isolated and successfully reproduced over and over again the last couple of years. What we like so much about this particular graft isn’t just the fact that the base color is two different colors, but that the polyps exhibit some random color morphing as well. If you take a look at both images (one above, one below), you’ll notice that the polyps in the red/orange portion of the coral stay that orangish color for the most part, but randomly show neon green highlights. Similarly, the polyps on the green portion of the coral show those interruptions of orange. And this blending doesn’t just occur where the orange and green base colors meet, but randomly throughout the frags. There are currently only four WYSIWYG frags available for the initial release. They are priced at $200 per frag (includes shipping) and all frags have were made about a month ago…meaning they’re all healed up from the fragging process
