The Fruit Salad Chalice Coral from Cairns Marine remains one of the most eye-catching, memorable corals we’ve ever covered. Jake Adams first wrote about it back in 2021 but the wholesaler procured at least two more, both of which ended up at Nick’s Aquarium in North Lakes, Queensland, Australia, and owner Nick gave us a recent update:
“The fruit salad chalice comes from Cairns Marine. It was brought to our attention by domestic sales representative Melinda, who works there. We originally purchased it back in 2022. It is roughly 7 cm long and 5 cm wide.”
“We have made around 6 frags from the mother colony in the display. Each time we frag it, we try to take from the sides to get as much color in the frag as possible, as it’s a super slow-growing coral.”
“We have had offers of over $4500 Australian ($3050 USD) for the whole coral, but it’s something we can’t part with, as we see it as a once-in-a-lifetime coral. It got the nickname “fruit salad” because its colors resemble a fruit salad, with blues, greens, reds, golds, and purples all mixed together.”
“There’s a song by The Wiggles called “Fruit Salad” that we thought would be a catchy post for our social media page when we shared it. We thought it would go hand in hand with a post about the vibrant coloration of the chalice, hence the reference name for calling it the fruit salad chalice.”
“I believe it’s Echinophyllia aspera, and it was collected from Mackay. It has been living in our Red Sea 650 Peninsula display tank for just over two years now. That tank is running on the full Red Sea RCP.”
Rainbow Chalice Coral
Nick’s Fruit Salad is a true rainbow chalice, and we can count all seven colors of the rainbow just from the attached images. It has a completely different flavor from other rainbow chalices like Bugatti and Jelly Bean, so we can see why he’s keeping it!
The first Fruit Salad is featured below:
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