New Coral to the Hobby???

AquaStudent12

New member
Ok let me start out by saying this is not somthing I can 100% prove so let me just tell the story. (For disgressionary reasons I won't use company or personal names in case this all blows up for some reason) Alright now with that all out if the way lets get into it, a few weeks ago I went to my local coral dealer and I saw a bunch of great stuff like always and we were shooting **** for a while talking about life and trition method and my tank at home. He showed me a few softball sized colonies that he's had for about over a year now and he said he'd give any one of them to me for 50 bucks... wait. He would charge me 40 the same day for a Halloween leptoseris that was smaller than a dime but would give me any of these acro and lps colonies for 50..? Ok, well great. I was eyeing up 2 of them in particular. One was just a kryptonie candy cane and the other was well... who knows? It had similar appearences to a micromusa but also looks totally different if you look close. Also the thing is grafted between at least 3 different color morphs. Mostly blue on one side and orange on the other with some purple on the bottom. But it also had some crazy bands of extreme fluorescence running through the top. I was in love and had to have it. And when I asked him what the heck that beautiful thing was he said he had no idea. He got it from an old friend as a frag and he let it grow out and his friend was an importer at the time and a collector and found this colony while he was diving somewhere and had to have it for himself. The main colony is still alive and well in his tank but he doesnt go in and frag anything anymore. Too old. No time. Not worth it. You know the type. Anyways. This is the only peice to have ever been fragged and it was never touched afterwards. My dealer tells me 50 bucks and it's mine and my head starts clicking. Why... it's so beautiful and so unique. Why not sell it for 500 or 5000? And then he tells me there are 3 reasons why. First reason, it eats up his elements super fast and when you are running trition that's pretty expensive. Second reason, he's a dealer and real estate in his systems is how he makes money and the thing is big and isn't doing anything but hog space. And the third reason which I didn't understand because I would think beauty could sell anything in this hobby, but he said he couldn't get people to buy it because the didn't know what it was and that scares away everyone. Well because of consumer concern I have my new favorite coral that only 1 other person is able to say they have. Now. The real question is is this a new coral to the hobby or even science? I'll put up some pictures of the thing under different lighting but I still don't have an orange gel filter so they didn't turn out great but that's ok. Can anybody ID this thing? Thanks for reading this far I'm looking forward to what you all have to say.
 
Well, this question would probably be better directed to the Reef Discussion Forum or the SPS Keepers Forum, and more importantly, there are no pictures. No one will be able to give you even an idea based upon a vague verbal description.

Kevin
 
Well, my "take away" is if a orange gel filter is needed to remove the blue light to get a good picture the lighting is skewing the fluorescent protiens the coral is making to protect itself from excessive blue light. Additionally, identifying a species based soley on the overall appearance of a coral is often very problematic.
 
Ok well I attached a photo on the origional post that it seems no-one is able to see. I'll try uploading a photo to another website and then copy the link. Anyone have an easier way of doing this?
 
no offens to you because it does sound awesome but I highly doubt it is new to science and who knows it could be new to the hobby heck certain corals have just showed up since I started reefing but I do want to see it it sounds awesome.

Also if you can't find anything about it you are welcome to frag a small piece and take it to a good collage or something to id it.... or send it to me :)
 
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