In the annals of reef aquarium history, there are two strains which really kicked off the whole concept of ‘limited edition’ corals – the green branching cap and the Leng Sy cap. These two strains of Montipora have been grown in the aquarium hobby for nearly 20 years, making them older than the youngest wave of new young aquarium reefers.
The Leng Sy cap was introduced to the world by Ecosystem Aquarium with a photo of an incredible colony grown in high light in the reef tank of Leng Sy. This coral can have a typical swirling capricornis shape with a jade green body and bright purple edges.
In bright light this coral grows more upwards and develops a thickness to its rim that highlights its color, and can even grow small protrusions. Dave Botwin’s colony is a particularly great specimen of this coral which thrives under the very bright lighting required to really make this coral shine.
Much less well known but equally as old is the green branching cap – this lime green Montipora was first grown at the Henry Doorly Zoo and was among the first LE corals alongside the Purple Monster Acro. This Monti strain has much more potential to develop green branching nodules but again, time, maturity and especially bright light will help to develop these unique features.
I was fortunate enough to harvest a frag of each of these near-vintage age corals from the reef aquarium of none other than Sanjay Joshi. These two corals are both doing extremely well and beginning to develop their unique features under bright LED light. I hope to follow up with these two corals in a few months time to show how they’ve come along and especially to document these corals growing close together.