Twenty years ago, “mini reef hobbyists” were lucky to get corals in a particularly juicy shade of brown, and if they were lucky there might be a hint of green in an elegance coral or trachyphyllia. But this is 2015 dang it, and REEFERS will not be satiated with corals that don’t display a veritable rainbow of colors.
This ability to exhibit a myriad of colors has colloquially been called a “rainbow” color if the coral has three or more distinct colors, and “ultra rainbow” if there are four or more colors present in a particular coral. We kinda just sort of made that up, or at least put it into words, but in going through many of our coral stories over the years we realize that we’ve spotlighted rainbow corals from just about every major group of stony corals, with an emphasis on LPS since these have the most potential to look like a painting.
The rainbow montipora was arguably the first truly rainbow-colored coral to enter reef aquarium culture and since then, nearly every imaginable kind of stony coral has shown up with unbelievably psychedelic colors. We’ve done our best to collect all of the major known strains of stony coral rainbows, most of which are linked to stories about the specific coral colony. We’ll be periodically updating this list to keep track of the new colors and forms of rainbow corals that aquarists discover in the future.
Rainbow Montipora (Kien Tran)
Rainbow Stylocoeniella (World Wide Corals)
Rainbow Cyphastrea (World Wide Corals)
Rainbow Blastomussa (World Wide Corals)
Rainbow Chalice Echinophyllia (World Wide Coral)
Rainbow Ricordea (Reef Gardener)
Rainbow Jawbreaker Discosoma (white corals)
Rainbow Scolymia (white corals)
Ultra Rainbow Scolymia (Cherry Corals)
Ultra Rainbow Acanthophyllia (SkyHigh)
Rainbow Trachyphyllia (Cherry Corals)
Rainbow Acan Lord (Eye Catching Coral)
Rainbow Micromussa (Reefwise)
Rainbow Australomussa (Frag Cave)
Ultra Rainbow Cycloseris (ReefKoi)
Rainbow Plesiastrea (Reef Farmers)
Rainbow Carpet Anemone
