This coral was originally imported from Australia and hand-picked as a pale, small mini colony with loads of potential. I have hand-picked many pieces from various suppliers throughout the years but this one really stood out as something that could be special when I first laid eyes on it.
We have a process that we like to implement on our Acropora before we like to publicly release them. Anyone who has seen the TSA Farm knows that we are not just a ‘chop shop’ and we believe in true aquaculture. This entails that the coral retains consistent traits in captivity over time.
After running this acro through a thorough quarantine process of inspections, dips, and debugging, we typically break them into smaller mini colonies and eventually cut frags from those. Then the real fun starts. Many of us know that oftentimes fresher pieces from the wild can transform dramatically in aquariums. They end up looking completely different in coloration and growth compared to what was initially observed upon collection.
This also gives us a chance to examine how quickly the piece heals and how quickly it grows. We try to move these into multiple grow-out systems as well. In doing so, we are testing them under a variety of lighting, water, and system parameters, looking for consistency and resilience in health, growth, and coloration. All these are great indicators to us whether or not a piece will become a mainstay on our farm for years to come.
TSA Flower Bomb
‘Naive’ corals with low survivability or degrading coloration often receive the boot. Once we are happy with what we see. Then it’s naming time! The TSA Flower Bomb is one of our newest sps releases. I have always had a soft spot for tabling pieces and really liked the thin and tight array of branches on this one.
The coloration on the Flower Bomb was also unlike any that I have seen in this species, displaying shades of pink encrustment and base color and vibrant contrasting yellowish-orange corallites. The polyps are mostly orange with some hints of green that gradient through the pearlescent new growth tips that reflect bold blues under actinic and heavy blue lighting.
A lot of my favorite Acropora are the ones that display well under both white and actinic, showing color that captures you from across the room as well as when you shove your face into the tank or viewing box. Many must agree as this Acropora was the one that customers kept walking to our booth and asking about at Reefapalooza Orlando and Aquashella Dallas where we debuted the initial pieces.
Kevin Burda
