Thin branching Blue Dragon Acro, Acropora walindii, maricultured colonies from Bali

The Blue Dragon Acro, a variant of Acropora walindii, has been available in the reef aquarium hobby infrequently ever since Bali first started shipping maricultured Acropora. With all those cool Mariculture Acros coming out of Bali these days, recently the Blue Dragon Acro has been a more regular sighting and  it’s super cool to see what kind of potential beauty this strain of Acropora walindii can develop in aquaria. If you think the Red Dragon Acro is a strain to be collected, follow the break to see it next to the Blue Dragon Acro, as well as a couple other color morphs of Acropora walindii.

Blue Dragon Acro, Acropora walindii on the left, Red Dragon Acro, Acropora carduus on the right

While in Southern California a month ago, we spied a nice little propagation setup at Oculus Aquatics which had a healthy standing crop of Blue Dragon Acros, as well as several other colors of Acropora walindii. In addition to the mostly all blue/purple Blue Dragon Acro, there was also an all minty green Acropora walindii and couple specimens of a Blue Dragon Acro with a greenish body and blue/purple tips.

When we got our first look at the Bali Mariculture Acropora at Oculus and Route 66 we spotted a fair number of Blue Dragon Acros and other colors of Acropora walindii but at first, these did not catch our attention the way that the real deal Acropora speciosa did. What really surprised us is how well the Blue Dragon Acro had setled in to aquarium life, with beautiful color, beautiful branching pattern, and interesting little polyps which give the Acropora walindii a unique “spiny” appearance.