Extremely rare Acanthastrea bowerbanki. Only God knows what colors this beauty will turn into under artificial lighting. One of a kind for serious collectors only!
Strange Acanthastrea echinata morph I discovered in Southern Sulawesi. Once in a while one of these large headed echinatas will be found among the normal ones. One thing that is strange about this coral is that colonies always have few heads, unlike the normal morphs below. There is a chance that this large headed acan echinata is a new acan species. I hope to meet up with Dr. Veron one of these days to discuss this coral and few others.
Acanthastrea echinatas are fairly common in Makassar, south Sulawesi. This nice little colony is an eye catcher for sure!
So this morph of echinata is know as "orange crush" in the US. This one is exceptionally nice in that it has bluish white markings!
Another cool little Acanthastrea echinata from hot sunny Southern Sulawesi!
Another coral that seems to be found no where else but in Makassar, the Acanthastrea maxima. This cool little coral comes in huge different color morphs, some are unbelievably beautiful, like this one with a green ring around the center!
A rare four headed Acanthastrea maxima. Normally these corals are found single heads or dual heads. Notice the slight green stripes on this one - very nice!
At first glance this coral looks like a chalice, but we all know that it is a rare Acanthastrea rotundoflora! Forms a bright green rim like a watermelon chalice under halides
Ok this is by far the strangest coral that I have encountered in Indo. It is from Southern Sulawesi and resembles a lobophyllia. But a closer look reveals that it is an acanthastrea! Resembles somewhat of a bowerbanki in that the large central head is surrounded by smaller heads (characteristics of a bowerbanki). The colors vary from this to orange green, typical acan colors. I can't id this coral, I simply call it unidentifiable acan lobo species. For sure though, it is a new acanthastrea species, can't be any other coral - even looked at the dead skeleton for days. One serious cherrypick!!
These flat trachyphyllias are known as Bali brains in Indo. The conical based ones are called Jakarta brains. The best ones comes from the islands of Flores, which lies east of Bali.
Red and metallic lime green Bali brains are really gorgeous. Believe it or not, under 20k halides, the coral looks better than this picture. This picture is taken under t5's.
Just beautiful is all I can say!
Red and black morphs are not so common!
It is amazing how the color morphs of these Bali brains can look. The red outline seems like it was painted on by an artist - very nice!
Blastomussa wellsi are truly gems of the reefs. This "ring of fire" blasto, is truly unique and beautiful!
Truly one of a kind of color morph of a blastomussa wellsi. First one I have seen and hopefully not the last - serious cherry!
Three colored blastos like this one is really hard to find. Red, green, and blue - too crazy!
Another unsual color morph. This one is green-yellow-pumpkin colored!
Ok this blasto resembles the more common color morphs, although this one is exceptionally nice!
Ok so comes one of my favorite finds. The echinophyllia, echinopora, mycedium, and oxypora chalices are rarities in the hobby. Small frags can fetch hundreds of dollars. This little orange with pink eyed echino is special, it has stripes throu out!
I'll just let the picture do the talking. This thing has pink, orange, green and blue speckles - can you say cherry! cherry! cherry!
Check out this mummy eyed chalice. The central eye is pink while the other eye colors are more red - very nice!
Another mummy eyed type of chalice - check out the crazy eye colors!
These type of chalices are not easy to come by. As a matter of fact, I have been working with suppliers and fishermen for over two years on these corals. It all paid off though, as my suppliers and fishermen are well trained and can pick these corals out in the wild. All it takes is training and will power.
Killer blue red chalice with whitish blue streaks!
Here is another coral that I discovered among misfits. This is the true Indonesian Scolymia vitiensis. It has become popular and highly prized.
This is a green morph of the Scolymia vitiensis. The fishermen and the suppliers couldn't believe it was the same corals as the red one. Now they know and "knowing is half the battle" as they say in the GI Joe cartoons that I used to watch years ago.
Of course I couldn't have a post about cherry corals without Ricordea yumas! This orange red monster is around 6 inches across when fully opened - just insane!
Gorgeous metallic orange with green mouth! For yumas lovers, this is one to savor!
Nice yuma with a stripe of white pimples!
Conclusion
Ok friends, that is it for today. Stay tuned as I have much more cherry pick corals to share with you in the coming days!
Cheers,
Eddie
