Acanthastrea pachysepta is one of the most recognizable and hardy LPS corals even if they are still commonly confused with Lobophyllia. Ever since this coral was imported, we knew it couldn’t be mixed with any Lobophyllia without a risk of being damaged so it’s wasn’t surprising that it was reclassified as Acanthastrea.
This Orange color, thick septa coral is really an Oz classic but some few specimen are a lot more precious, colored and unique than that. Rainbow ‘Pachies’ showed up regularly in the trade however these multicolor Chameleon Pachies collected by Ultra Coral Australia are truly an insane patchwork of all possible colors a Pachy can exhibit.
While the classic orange and gold colors that A. pachysepta usually harbor are dominant other colors that are a lot more unusual for that species, such as green, blue or pink are also there, mixing up nicely in a very unique patchwork pattern. This particular coral was collected in 6m (18 ft) of very turbid inshore reef water.
A few orange dominated polyps of the Chameleon Pachy 
This particular polyp with pink is probably the nicest one! 
Green based Chameleon Pachy polyps.
Each polyp of that colony is a truly unique coral. The good news being that A. pachysepta, is quite a good aquarium corals. It lives in turbid protected habitat and apart from its aggressiveness, it’s a fast growing and solid coral. So we assume the Chameleon Pachy will be propagated and made more available to more peoples in a pretty short time.
It’s still unsure where these corals are going to land, Nic seems to want to keep it, and propagate them for a some time, but the ultra LPS collectors should keep an eye for this unusual and striking strain of large polyp Acanthastrea.
