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…
Watermelon Chalice is a stunning coral
While diving in North Sulawesi, we came across a fantastic small colony of Oxypora lacera, the Watermelon Chalice. While this color morph is quite common in Australia, it’s quite rare in Indonesia. The perfect red colony color, with a green…
The Nishi Chalice, Echinomorpha nishihiroi, is One Rare Coral
Words like that are used to describe the relative abundance of corals like ‘rare’ have all but lost any meaning in the aquarium hobby because it gets thrown around so much. But if there’s one holy grail coral species among all…
Coscinaraea (Cycloseris) wellsi: The Unknown Coral from the Deep
Having to dive deeper and deeper to try to find something more interesting, on the way down on rare occasions I have come across a coral, that I never had seen before, in the 35-45 meter (~135 feet) zone. Coscinaraea…
Welcome to Gold Chalice central!
Chalice corals hit the scene in a huge way and now have been popular for quite a while, but since the Indonesian Coral ban, some corals we took for granted have nearly disappeared. Australian Chalice corals are pretty nice, but…
Rainbow Chalice Motherlode Part 2
There’s nothing that can get a coral collector’s heart racing like seeing one beautiful colony of rainbow chalice coral. So you can imagine my sincere shock when I discovered another ‘secret stash’ of rainbow colored Echinophyllia after visiting VP Corals in…
Fireball Echinomorpha Just Might Burn Your Retinas
Over the last decade the hobby has collectively handled tens of thousands of Mycedium, Oxypora, and Echinophyllia colonies and strains. We’re probably starting to deplete the truly novel colors and patterns within these species but thankfully, we’re just beginning to explore the diversity of Echinomorpha.…
A selection of Echinophyllia chalice corals from the Solomon Islands
As far as the hobby is concerned, nearly all of the stupid-awesome colored chalice corals are basically only found in Indonesia. Australia throws out some winners here and there but by and large, Indo is where it’s at when it…
The Easter Egg chalice: ORA’s latest must-have coral
The team at ORA has a great “eye” for corals as shown with the latest addition to it line up — the ORA Easter Egg chalice. With bright pink tissue and bright yellow oral disks, this Oxypora will catch your…
Sensational plating Pectinia colonies ready to further the chalice coral craze
Pectinia is one of the most overlooked coral genera of all the LPS stony corals and for good reason too. Until recently all the Pectinia that were collected for the aquarium trade were brown, grey or greenish with boring shapes and…
