As stated in a previous post on rainbow corals, a plethora of colors are not too difficult to find in the LPS corals of today. It is evident that this is an exciting time to be in the marine aquarium hobby. What about the truly spectacularly colored SPS?
For the purpose of this post we will touch a little on wild acros but focusing on the ones in captivity. We will deem “Rainbow” colored to mean three or more colors for the purpose of this discussion. Often favoring the combination of the blended hues of yellow, green, red, and blue.
Many wild corals, especially coming out of Australia and Indonesia, could be considered rainbow. Also a lot of maricultured millies come in rainbow colors as well. Reefers who have tried their hand at keeping SPS, knows that to get it to displaying it’s full potential of colors long term is difficult. Anyone who have tried buying a freshly imported acro colony which looks amazing upon purchase often end up slowly losing it’s natural ocean colors one day at a time. Eventually settling into more of the colors we’re used to in captivity. If you’ve done a good job, the colors will still be beautiful, just not quite as vibrant as it once was when wild.
Simply put, our tanks are not the ocean that provides these corals with the optimum amount of light, with favorable temperatures, and unlimited amount of clean water and low nutrients to feed upon. I hope one day we can achieve the same ocean results as this hobby continues to advance. The beauty of acros lies in the challenge to keep it alive, then to keep it thriving and then to show it’s full potential of colors.
When Jake posed the question to me, “What are the truly rainbow SPS in captivity?” As I googled my brain of what I have seen over the years, I realized there were not too many. At least not as many as I’d like. But without further ado, here are some worthy contenders:
The label of “Rainbow Acropora” will always be a hot topic of debate. In this hobby we have as many opinions on one topic as we do reefers out there. I always enjoy the input of fellow reefers what they think is beautiful and why. I have been wrong enough times to know that every opinion matters. There is still a lot more we can learn about maintaining ocean like chemistry in our aquariums. Do you agree or disagree with this list? Let us know in the comments – Keep on reefing!
