Bali Blue growth shots (duec22 look here)

[thereefgeek]

I won this in a club raffle back in late '04, and the best info I could get from the shop that donated it to the club is that it was an aquacultured colony from Bali.

I've fragged very few peices of this colony, mainly because my wife (who actually made the choice when my ticket was drawn) gives me such a hard time when I do! One lucky club member duec22 ended up with a frag of it in some sort of trade deal and honored my wife by naming it "fatsuki's Bali blue". I call it "Jeni will kill me if I frag it again", but that doesn't seem to flow from the tongue quite as well.

I dug up some old pictures, as well as one from this afternoon in the hopes that someone could I.D. it for me. It's dark green near the center of the colony, 12" below a 250 watt 10K Ushio, and turns a beautiful, intense blue toward the tips. It tends to grow away from the bright light and prefers the "shadowed" area between the MH bulbs, even growing downward as if to escape the bright light.

Sorry for the crappy series of recent pictures.

When I acquired it 10/04

And a closer view of the coralites

7/05

6/06

Any ideas or speculations?

Thx,

 

[sfsuphysics]

Ahhhh I remember wanting a piece of the ultra rare "Jeni will kill me if I frag it again" a ways back (still would like one)

Can't help on the ID though sorry... but looking at some of that coraline along the back... if you happened to scrape it off looks like you can "accidently" break off a few tips

 

[duec22]

Wow..it really is growing downwards for you.. So far I've been getting most of my growth in the horizonal, although I was getting more vertical growth when I was running 1x55w PC and 2x24W T-5 (I was running this untill March 06). I thing this coral actually like lower light. Right now I'm getting the best coloration for the tips that are directly under the actinics. I've also recently upgraged my flow, and scince that time the coralites have been getting much larger)
Here are a couple pics I have of my piece. this has grown from a 1.5" frag a year ago...(please ignore the frag markers...I'm fragging to try and encourage some growth.)

And just to show you what type of coloration this coral is capable of...this is a close up of one of the tips from when it was under the PC/T-5 combo..

 

[Ti]

That's one good looking coral

 

[thereefgeek]

Thanks, it's growing out all different directions with no symetry to it at all.

Any ideas on a Species?

 

[King-Kong]

Interesting and beautiful (especially those tips).. looks familiar to a brown-out special I got from a store.. mine is beginning to color up more and more; seem familiar?

http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/77-newacro2.jpg
http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/77-newacro.jpg

 

[jjackson]

with the growth and speed of growth I would say some sort of Staghorn

 

[slojmn]

jjackson, I concur, seems like staghorn type coral is a good start...you know, Chris over at ReeferMadness seems to be an awesome person for ID's... as far as speculation goes. It is hard to know for sure any ID's, but I would send him a quick email and direct him over here. He seems to enjoy the challenge of ID'ing "stuff"

 

[zarro]

nice pics

 

[duec22]

The best guess I've been able to come up with is Acropora insignis..not so much in the first two pics, but in all the rest it looks a lot like it.

 

[CamBarr]

i would say A. insignis

 

[sfsuphysics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7554499#post7554499 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by duec22
The best guess I've been able to come up with is Acropora insignis..not so much in the first two pics, but in all the rest it looks a lot like it.

I recently got a frag of this, supposedly blue.. it definatley needs to color up though .. . When I saw those larger pictures I don't know why the back of my mind was tickling, but I didn't want to make a speculation based upon a frag I have.

 

[caesura]

Here's one the same or very similar. I bought it as an aquacultured from Bali. My best guess is insignis.

11/27/2005

1/18/2006

3/31/2006

 

[thereefgeek]

caesura, yours looks exactly like mine.
Thanks folks, I'm going with insignis (which is what I speculated to deuc22 a while back)

Mike, if you got a peice of this one (from David?), rest assured it will color up. This thing is an eye popping BAAAA-LOOOOOO! :eek1:

My recent pics just don't do it justice.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Well I'm unsure about the lineage of my frag but I didn't get it directly from David, we'll see how blue it gets.

 

[10810]

Got this from a Bali shipment. (A. insignis??)

It started to STN so I fragged it into a few pieces. It also browned out big time

The frags started to recover and get some colour back

After a little while it looked a lot better

I’ve now transferred a few pieces from the frag tank into the main tank. Happy I never lost it altogether

 

[CamBarr]

yup A.insignis you beat me duec22

 

[thereefgeek]

Looks the same as mine, 10810. Nice blue with green coralites!

 

[duec22]

I've only made two frags of mine...both went to John...and I have an encrusted tip that I'm going to give to Rob...
Yeah the other two colonies in this thread look identical...very nice...notice how all seem to grow out into the long branches without much braching....but they all seem to have started from a very "branchy" colonies...I wonder how to get that original growth formation...
One thing I noticed with this coral is it really does like a lot of flow. Befor I added my Sieo to the tank, the coralites on this coral were really small and not very pronounced. Since adding this coral gets a lot of flow on the upper half and the coralites in this part of the coral have been getting much much larger...but has not affected the branching....I recently cut two frags...one from each side to see if this would help kick start some branching for me...well see how this works out in a couple of months..

 

[10810]

Thanks reefgeek, at least I can tick off another name on my list of “don’t know what it is.”
When my new camera arrives I’ll be posting quite a few “ID please” pics as I have just received a 35 pieces package that came from Bali.