It’s no secret that LPS corals enjoy a strong following with a wide cross section of the reef aquarium community, and one of the corals leading the charge has long been Homophyllia bowerbanki. We’ve documented the various color forms of this large,…
Coral
Euphyllia baliensis, the Holy Grail Quest!
It’s been over eight years since the small polyp Euphyllia baliensis was described from the deep waters around the Indonesian Island of Bali. It’s also been around eight years that we’ve been searching for this coral, pushing the limits of…
The Myth of LPS Corals Living in ‘Dirty Water’
Every day that we observe corals in the ocean and take care of them in our aquarium it becomes clearer how important feeding is to them. Recently while watching a live video from our good friend Shane Danger Coleman, we…
Pikachu Acropora microclados, a New OG Reef Tank Coral?
With the recent reopening of Maricultured Indonesian corals, we (at Bali Aquarium) finally got back some corals that we terribly missed. Some corals are very popular for brief periods of time but other times like with the Pikachu Acropora which…
Acropora striata, a Skinny Version of the Beloved Tenuis Acro
For many years, we’ve been intrigued by an Acropora tenuis look alike, a convincing impersonator with skinny tapering branches. This is a coral we occasionally encountered from time to time, in many different places around the Indonesian archipelago but for…
Automated Coral Husbandry with CHARM
CHARM Last week when we saw the frag cleaning robot called ‘CHARM’ the intriguing video had me asking questions. Isn’t it easier to clean frags by hand? How is this robot supposed to recognize all sorts of frags? Is this…
Micromussa amakusensis, the Original Small Polyp Micromussa
Micromussa amakusensis, was once a regular import from Indo and Tonga, and now that Indonesia has reopened for wild coral exports, we can expect to get our hands on a few of these amazing corals again. In general the ‘classic’…
Indo Gold Torch are Back and More Colorful Than Ever
Indonesian coral farmers have been waiting for a very long time to be able to ship some gold torch corals again. Classic Australian gold torch corals, or ‘glabs’ as they call them, are very nice, especially the ’24 karat gold…
The Shape of Corals is Linked to How they Feed
It’s been over 20 years since I started culturing corals in the ocean and in dedicated aquariums. I always believed that the shape of a corals was mainly determined by trying to expose as much surface to light while withstanding…
Is Acropora convexa the Next Holy Grail Acro?
It’s been a while since we wrote about Australian corals but with all this down time, we finally can find the time to write about things that inspired us in our previous journeys.During our Ultra Coral Australia trips on the…