Acropora are some of the most unique and interesting of all wild stony corals not just for their diversity of species and shapes, but also for just how unique the populations from different regions can appear. Case in point is an exotic strain of Acropora speciosa from Malaysia being shown off by Unique Corals which display very desirable color and a classic bottlebrush growth form.
We have no doubt that their representation is boosted by the use of orange lens filters to help tamp down the blue lighting and bring out more of the colors of these corals but they still demonstrate some mouth-watering colors and patterns. All of these corals show a mostly olive to jade base coloration with yellow tips to all the radial and axial corallites which are a sweet orangey pink towards the base of the branches and inside of the colony, who knows what wacky colors the polyps might be!
Among the colonies of Acros we can confidently identify as speciosa there does appear to be some specimens that are more in line with the appearance of another bottlebrush species, Acropora aculeus which is very commonly collected and exported from Australia in neon green colors. This cohort of Acropora speciosa from Malaysia bare a close resemblance to the ‘Flamingo Sunrise’ strain we featured nearly three years ago and but they are wildly different in appearance to the A. speciosa from Bali which first introduced us to this very attractive bottlebrush Acro species.
We expect that these colonies are and will remain quite pricey but one great thing about Acropora speciosa is that while it may not grow at a breakneck pace it is a very densely branching species giving reefers ample opportunity to snap off a branch and share frags with their fellow reef builders and stickheads. It’s beyond exciting to see familiar corals becoming available in unique shapes and highly irresistible colors so we can only cross our fingers that these corals settle well into reef aquarium conditions and become endemic in our local and national reef aquarium communities.
