Do you ever regret not buying a coral? We were scrolling through our phone pictures recently when we were reminded of two “Favia” which were on sale when we worked in a wholesaler’s. There we dealt with thousands of corals on a daily basis with colorful Euphyllia glabrescens being the biggest sellers by far, and if a coral didn’t pop, or sway in the current, few retailers, and even fewer of their customers were interested in them. That was the case for these two Dipsastraea – interesting to the staff because they were subtly colored and patterned, yet a difficult sell for most marine stores. We were struck by them, however, their difference in pattern versus others of their kind, and we so wish we had bought them.
The green one stood out for its neat but widely spaces corallites, khaki green background color yet little explosions of red and yellow around the mouths. The other one had a muted purple base color with splashes of khaki green around the corallites, and red mouths with yellow centers. They came in cultured from Indonesia and eventually they were bought by an aquarium store. We’ve seen some with similarly colored and patterned mouths since then but they’ve been much gaudier and more fluorescent, more forgettable, and less distinct than these two that we took a shine to. Being maricultured, they should come through again, or hopefully, the original colonies are alive and well somewhere, even maybe now living on as frags. They didn’t have hyperbolic trade names so it will make their search more difficult, but for now, they will remain the two toned-down Dipsastraea speciosa that got away…
