With the number of limited edition corals having grown exponentially with prices to match, it’s important to appreciate your own personal coral history first. We all like the background stories on LE corals. Who can forget the first Solomon Island coral frag shipments that gave us the Oregon Tort, Acropora horrida and our first taste of really exotic Montipora. Or the new strawberry dessert dishes form Australia. When I sit in front of my tank with my thoughts for company, I get a huge kick out of common corals that have endured my participation in this hobby for the last decade or more.

Today, I’m married with a 18 month old. But I have corals that I purchased almost 15 years ago as a college student with a nano reef (though it was just called a mini reef back then). Examples are the all-too common Green Slimer Acropora and a simple Caribbean Gorgonian. I remember driving across the US to my first job out of college, in the middle of February. My car broke down in Kansas, and I found myself stuck in a dry town with a cooler full of corals and a battery operated air stone.

These corals have been through a lot, and therefore I’ll always have a spot for them in my tank. When I see their polyps swaying in the current, I’m looking at my own history and it brings me back. The smiles I get from these legacy corals is worth more than any limited edition coral. Don’t get me wrong, new corals provide their own level of excitement. It’s undeniably fun to try new frags and create new history but it’s nice to have some old faithful Cnidarians to welcome them into the group.