Up until now, we admit to losing interest in Montipora setosa, such is its abundance in the hobby, ease of keeping, and frequency in frag form. We used to get offered so much of it in our retail days that we were tempted to put up signs saying “no setosa,” and we ranked it low alongside endless frags of purple Stylophora, green Montipora digitata, and three colors of capricornis.
Our love for this semi-branching, semi-encrusting monti was reignited however when we saw this grafted Montipora setosa owned by Japanese reefkeeper Hoshitsutsu and we’ve been staring at it, admiring it, and getting excited about it ever since. What smacks you first is its color. As red as the Rising Sun flag, then deep orange and pinky-purple, only pretty evenly protein infected throughout with yellow swirls. We’ve seen lots of grafted Montis before, quite a few grafted setosa even, but fingers crossed, if the image hasn’t been over-filtered, this is the nicest, brightest example we’ve seen to date.
Its a colony, not just a tiny frag
Even the size and form of Hoshitstsu’s grafted colony helped our appreciation of both the species and this particular variant. We are so used to seeing tiny “Y” shaped Twiglets of setosa on egg crate or frag plugs that we had almost forgotten its place as a hardy and worthy stony coral colony – especially if brightly colored. We can’t help thinking that if was anywhere else it would have been chopped into tiny pieces and not properly appreciated as we can do here, and the yellow graft shows no signs of growing out.
This grafted setosa would be the centerpiece of almost anyone’s coral collection, but it makes up just one of dozens of sought-after stony corals in @Hoshitsutsu’s 250-liter/66-gallon tank on his Instagram page. A modest-sized tank by anyone’s standards but lit with an arch of five EcoTech Radions as well as two supplemental LED lighting bars. This Japanese reef tank is another of our favorite #reefbuilders tanks on Instagram and its characteristic style has been much shared and appreciated.
