Few other coral in our hobby captures the image we have about massively plating coral like Acropora efflorescens. We have seen tabling corals such as Acropora granulosa or Acropora millepora but in reality the title of a true plating Acro belong to the Efflo. Instead of branching and fingering out to build a flat structure, these corals grow flat and solid, often described as a dinner plate.
The original Ultimate Efflo was acquired in 2003 by Greg Carroll from a Black Coral Hawaii in Orange County California. It was originally with a shipment from Indonesia. From the best of my knowledge no other coral of it’s kind has been collected and imported into the US since.
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Along with the Ultimate Efflo, several other corals came in that became very well known in the high end SPS collectors community. These included Lime in the Sky, GC Acroberry, Ultimate Blue Stag, and few others. To say the least, importation of this coral is rare.
Pictured in the header image are two Acropora efflorescens from Greg Carroll’s 225 Gal reef in 2008. Bottom one is the Tyree LE Soli and top is the Ultimate Efflo. Note the distinct differences in coloration and structure. The Ultimate Efflo is solid blue in color with green polyps at the body, florescent polyps at the tips.
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We all know that many Acros require a lot of water flow to thrive, the Ultimate Efflo is no different. However we will go a step further and say that it requires even more flow than the high flow loving species such as a Millepora. As the Ultimate Efflo grew, it required extreme amount of flow and light to keep it’s coloration.
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in 2012, due to plans moving to a new house, Greg moved his large colony to a coral farm. Unfortunately over the course of eight months, it steadily lost tissue. Currently a remaining colony is being kept and farmed for future propagation. This coral is down to two remaining sources and no import of it is in sight. I hope our advanced coral keepers can keep this coral available in our community.
This is a guest contribution from Leo Chen, owner/operator of Coral Revolution.
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