Corals

Ten of our Favorite #reefbuilders Tagged Corals on Instagram

We love it when you tag us on Instagram and there are currently over 365,000 #reefbuilders tagged posts on the photo and video-sharing app. Here are just 10 of the corals we’ve picked out and highlighted from our feed, and…

Crazy Ludicrous Chalice in the wild!

Once in a while, you come across a coral during a dive, and you can’t not share it with everyone. This was the case during an exploration dive in the south of Sumba. Exposed, high swell, cold up-wellings, everyone was…

The Mother of all Cynarina lacrymalis found on the Great Barrier Reef

Ania Nerowski, our own Australian-based coral nerd, has reported to us a fantastic coral that showed up in Australia. Cynarina lacrymalis, the Button Coral, is normally a solitary, monocentric, one polyp, one mouth coral. Double or triple heads sometimes show…

Observations on a “new” soft coral in the hobby, Paraminabea rubeusa, by Julian Sprung

After so many years enjoying and looking forward to the coral feature articles that Jake Adams wrote and Vincent Chalias still writes for Reef Builders, I came across a coral that inspired me to want to compose a gushing, over…

The New Octocorallia: Scleralcyonacea (And A Few Remaining Mysteries)

Having now fully explored the Malacalcyonacea Part 1 and Part 2, it’s time to turn our attention to its sister group, the order Scleralcyonacea. These clades are roughly equivalent in terms of species-level diversity, but whereas the malacalcyonaceans included many…

Heliopora hiberniana is more common than we thought

Helioporacea is a pretty unique order of Octocorallia (soft corals), which was thought for a very long time to contain only one single species, Heliopora coerulea, the famous Blue Ridge Coral that incorporates copper into its skeleton. This coral is very…

Giant Acropora tenuis spotted in Bali

We’ve been growing Acropora tenuis in their millions for over 20 years now and have been roaming Indonesian reefs for over 25 years. So we can say we’ve seen our fair share of tenuis, but there are some colonies that…

Bali Aquarium Becomes the first Licensed Ex-Situ Coral Farm in Indo

Over 20 years after becoming the first in-situ (Ocean Farm), licensed coral farm in Indonesia, Bali Aquarium has done it again, becoming the first ex-situ (inland) licensed coral farm in Indonesia to obtain export quota for these corals. It’s been…

Ultimate Mycedium Chalice Corals Spotted in Indonesia

We love to photograph Mycedium under water – Mycedium elephantotus is probably one of the most photogenic corals because it always exhibit a variety of bright colors on the same colony with contrasting mouths. During a diving trip in central…

This is why Lobophyllia flabelliformis is Called ‘Carpet Lobo’

While ‘coral-ing’ in North Bali, we came upon an insane colony of Lobophyllia flabelliformis we couldn’t resist to photograph and share with you. But we came across while foraging for coral observation in North Bali, a colony of Lobophyllia like…