We share a lot of rare fish and exotic coral eye candy here on Reef Builders, and Japan has its fair share. There is coral “porn”, and then there are superbly close and exquisite corals that look so surreal and perfect, that not even fresh wild corals can truly compare.
Corals in the wild have to contend with strong currents, sedimentation, natural predators, bio erosion by a variety of encrusting and competing organisms. Not to mention every coral on the reef is either trying to kill or overgrow every other coral on the reef.
This is not so in the home aquarium, and the flawless reef tank featured by YouTube user Tara Kitahama is a perfect showcase of how great corals can look in a perfect reef tank. This level of health and coloration is what we would describe as “supernatural” as you would be very hard pressed to find corals this combination of healthy, colorful and extreme polyp extension on a wild or natural reef.
The real tale of the tape is not the hypersaturated colors of the easy-to-grow Acropora millepora or the various Seriatopora and Stylophora. The real clincher of how well these corals are doing is the picture perfect Acropora spathulata which is a notoriously difficult SPS coral to keep and grow in captivity.
The videos are also a testament to the incredible color rendition that is achievable with the third generation Radion Pro G3, the corals look freshly harvested after more than a year under the completely artificial lighting of Light Emitting Diodes. Someone please reach out to Kitahama-san and get his Radion lighting profile because that is one LED program we would love to recreate with our own Radion fixtures.
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