I'm back and finally have some time to update. Here are some corals from the last trip and this trip to the islands.
Check out this gorgeous one of a kind color Acan Max! It sports dark purple center with green outside with purple edges. Incredible little coral. I keep finding more and more unusual and very cool morphs of this piece. For your information, this coral is not a scolymia species that is found in Australia, known to as to some people as "prata". To my knowledge, this little gem is only found in Makassar waters. It is known as "Eddie lobo" in Makassar. It was dubbed this because in the beginning I was the only one looking for this coral. I simply told them it looked like a lobo and so the name stuck. The other exporters really get pissed off when they see this coral as "edi lobo" on the invoices. I love it! It would be neat to start a collection of these. I wonder how many different color morphs are actually out there? One day I will get all of my pictures together and put it in a book. I will call the volumes "Corals of the Indo Pacific" a practical pictorial guide to corals for the aquarium trade. For example, I would have 50 pictures of different color morphs of say one coral, maybe the sps acropora millepora. It probably will be a 10 + volume set. Do you think people would buy?
Woh man! Watch out! Have you ever seen a collection like this before? I have. I put it together! The blue palys are insane. They were glowing under natural lighting. But what I really like is the blue zoanthid colony in the middle. You got to see it to believe it! It is the most blue I've ever seen. This piece would sell $50 for a few heads in the US. But don't get the impression that these are common. Only I can make a such collection! :)
Remember this piece from a few threads ago? It is doing great now and some lucky reefer will end up with "the mask of zorro chalice". But please do not frag, the smiling face is so cool!
Here is another one of those Makassar specials. It is an acan species. It usually comes in orange/ green. Sometimes strange colors like this appears. These are extremely easy corals to color up and maintain. T5's or vho's would be sufficient. But of course halides is the way to go! Found a little deeper down, it would be wise to acclimate it lower in the tank if you have halides.
A beautiful Acanthastrea echinata! Green metallic with orange eyes makes this coral one of the brightest of the mussidae family. Another Makassar special!
A northern Bali aquaculture tenuis. Even out of the water, it still has color. Try taking your favorite acro out of water and see it under regular light, it will look brown. So you can imagine the colors of this coral. We will call this coral "eddie's elite edition (eee ) winter appleberry".On another note, my customers have been raising the question of how these aquacultures are too small. The fact of the matter is, smaller pieces sell better overall (because of shipping costs) and the fact that they do ship better than larger ones. Besides, that the main reason of course is the famers can make more money growing smaller pieces. It is funny, how the US market likes the smaller ones, but the Europeans like the big ones. The problem is the farmers do not want to release the big ones for they are keeping them as broodstock.
Ok remember this piece. I released a few of this piece to the US not too long ago. I've also brought two pieces for my friend Onky in Makassar. He has a nice sps system and I'm curious to see how it is doing. I didn't get a chance to look at it on the last trip, just too busy. I have dubbed this coral "eee raspberry tort. It certainly resembles a tort.
Ok, now we are talking about a serious limited edition piece. How serious? There were only three of these on the whole farm! The picture does no justice. It was literally metallic! It looked like it was growing in an sps system for a long time. I'm going to call it "eee spring raspberry passion! Whoever ends up with it, please keep me updated with photos! Thanks.
Very nice Sarangan beach aquaculture. Note the new growth on the tips. Some acros color at the tips as they grow, but some are just plain white. This is a very healthy coral for sure. Check out the small size. I've seen pieces half that size growing. This is because this millepora color morph is not common and the farmers do not want to waste it. It is all about economics - supply and demand! We can call this "eee summer raspberry plum"
This is probably the nicest Acropora Selago that I've seen. It is literally super green. You can't see it in the picture but trust me! Most of these deepwater acro from northern Bali are dull in color. Finding one like this is rare. So just because I post one picture, our customers think that it is common and I can get more. Not true. I only post only the nicer specimens, but there are plenty of brown ones around. Of course this is typical of the deepwater acros. I will call this "eee winter starlight".
Nice Acropora loripes! Sometimes these corals get confused with granulosas. The loripes usually come in bright yellow to dark purple with green to yellow highlights. These are only grown in the northern Bali and are a stable for the farmers. This is probably the most common acro from this area that is exported. Can you tell this piece was broken off from a tabling piece originally before it was mounted? Check out the tips growing side ways if you look at it from the front. If you lay it on it's side, then it would grow the way it was meant to be. Eventually if left alone long enough, the tips would change direction upward toward the lights. I've seen a few pieces like this at the farms. Little things like that is pretty cool to observe. We can call this coral "eee spring flower".
A very nice piece of Acropora caroliniana. Note the typical brownish body and colored tips of many deepwater acroporas. These also turn into insane colors under halides! We can call it "eee sweet caroline", just like one of my favorite karaoke songs by Neil Diamond!
All right, so this dark purple stag is called an Acropora grandis. This is what the farmers and exporters are calling it. I do have my doubts though, as I have seen and exported grandis from Tonga. Those acros from Tonga look just like the pictures in the Veron's book. But for now, until we can positively id this piece, we will call it "eee summer grape".After doing some research with fellow reefers, we came to the conclusion that this is actually the Acropora hoeksemai. Sorry for the confusion.
Here is a not so common acropora. This one is an Acropora carduus. A deepwater species but usually doesn't have much color. This light purple is typical of this coral. We can call this one "eee autumn's delight".
The northern Bali special, the gomezi (also known as echinata here). No need to talk so much about this piece, everyone knows it is one of my favorites. I'd like to call it simply "eee Bali tort"
A beautiful acropora plana. Sometimes this coral is confused with acropora desalwii. They do look like but the latter has thinner branches and the base color is usually lime green. Also the polyps tend to be green too, unlike the planas, which have purple polyps. We will call this acro "eee spring purpleberry"
A killer piece of wild Acropora granulosa! Too bad it got damaged by the time it was sent to Jakarta. We loose about half of the pieces during transport. The thin branch deepwater acros are the worst, as they are brittle and are easy to get damaged. I'd like to call this acro, "eee purple passion"
Have a look at this amazing coral! This is a large colony of an Acropora desalwii. Notice the thin green branches with purple tips. This one lost lots of the tips during transport. No matter as it heals up very quickly under good conditions. A large piece like this would be a challenge to send far overseas. The risk of dying in the bag is great as large colonies stress very easily. I will call this acro "eee spring kiwiberry".There are couple of reasons why I decided to name the sps's. One is that it will prepare fellow reefers for a promotion that I will be launching at the end of this year. It will be an aquaculture promotion based on my elite edition corals. There will be prizes to go along with it. It will be lots of fun. So keep these corals and the names in mind.
Another reason for naming the corals, is to help out my customers. I want them to order by the eee name. So let's say they want the acropora desalwii, they simply would ask for 5 pieces of spring kiwiberry.
To my customers, please copy and keep these pictures and the names I'm giving as a reference. This will make things easier for both of us in the future. Please help promote these corals by selling them by the name I've given. This will certainly help when I launch the promotion, as you guys will be the point of distribution. Thanks.
cheers,
Eddie
