Rainbow Chalice corals of the genus Echinophyllia have arrived, in America at least, as evidenced by the recent bumper crop of multicolor chalice coral colonies at several of the country’s specialist coral vendors. The coral slingers at Detroit Coral Farms worked very hard and long on a dedicated shipment of rainbow-bleeding multicolor chalice corals, a trio of which we got to see first hand, in person at one of our local coral dealers.
Josh Gonzales of Gonzo’s Coral Frags tipped us off that he had acquired some of the most exquisite rainbow chalice corals he’d ever laid eyes on and that’s saying a lot considering he’s one of the leading sources for dedicated corals collectors. When we arrived at Gonzo’s, as much nice super colorful corals as he had they were all but eclipsed by three new coral strains Josh picked up in the Motor City: the Grinspoon Chalice, the Motor City Mayhem Chalice and the Meltdown Chalice coral.
We took these pictures ourselves, under blue LED lighting with a mixture of blue and pink/purple T5 lamps and we are presenting them here with absolutely zero retouching, just a basic crop to frame the subject. These pictures very accurately reflect how these freshly imported corals appeared in real life, though their colors will likely change, and probably intensify under the proper spectrum and lower light intensity.
The Grinspoon Chalice coral is your standard very nice super red chalice coral overlaced with smoky grey streaks that are bound to get more intense in aquarium lighting. What is not obvious about the picture is that in addition to the red body, the oral discs (eyes) are actually redder than the surrounding tissue, making it appear as if the Grinspoon Chalice coral is glowing from within – a very cool effect.
The Motor City Mayhem Chalice coral is also a red chalice with abundant, juicy tissue but instead of having red oral discs, it has yellow green eyes that pop against the red base color. The MCM Chalice also has light colored grey streaks which are altogether a different shade from the Grinspoon chalice coral above.
Last but certainly not least, the Meltdown Chalice has perhaps one of the most appropriate named-coral names ever since we’ve never seen anything quite like it. This coral right here, is a true representation of the official colors of the University of Miami Hurricanes football team, with an even balance of orange and green splattering. The swirls of color through the Meltdown Chalice are out of this world, and any single frags of this spectacular Echinophyllia are going to be conversation pieces.
If there appears to be a few more Rainbow Chalice corals these days, don’t fool yourself into thinking there are that many more. These corals are the Creme-de-la-Creme-de-la-Creme; individual frags of these rainbow colored chalice corals will be expensive for sure, but with more than one colony to drool over the frags will shy away from being exorbitant prices.
High cost for corals like these are overall good for the reefkeeping hobby because it ensures that whoever gets the frags will really take care of it, grow it and add to the growing catalog of aquarium grown corals available in the reef aquarium community. With that little disclaimer out of the way, we hope you’ll enjoy the completely undoctored images below and lookout for them at your next local coral frag / aquarium event.
