Personally, I like the interest in rare SPS because generally what happens is a certain species or color morph is aggressively fragged / split and spread out across the hobby. This whole thread is about a single coral that was not aggressively spread and 'died out'. Think about the original Seattle blue tortuosa. Don't forget it was ONE COLONY of potentially limited size. It might even have been a single branch. That same coral is now in dozens (if not hundreds) of tanks. Though slow-growing, it is very hardy and holds color well in varied lighting schemes (without requiring 400 watt MH). I don't doubt that within out lifetimes LFS will be selling tanks of cultured frags of corals that used to be rare, and the blue tort will probably be one of the first, though it COULD have gone the way of the Leng Sy cap.
I was just up at Steve Tyree's place two days ago and saw the Raphael cap. It looks intriguing, that's all I'll say. I am certainly in line for a frag. I also wanted to say that I buy 'unusual' frags from Steve all the time, and I am probably one of his safe customers in that I have never lost one of his frags - they are all still alive in my system. At the same time, if any of my colonies get large enough to frag, I do so gladly and pass them on to another reefer whose system I can trust. It's not about money for me - it's about beautiful creatures and keeping a 'bloodline' alive in captivity. When people start worrying about environmental impact of the reef aquarium hobby, it is always nice to point to a single coral that now exists in 100's of tanks.
Steve, as a novel idea, did you ever think about a national 'frag' registry for the Raphael cap? It might be interesting to keep a couple generations on file - to see who buys it, how many of those people keep it alive, and if any of their colonies get to fraggable size, who they pass their frags on to. I'll tell you one thing - if this sky blue monti cap you sold me holds color, I will set one up myself. This thing is AWESOME!
You have quite an assortment of large fish for a reef tank. Very interested in their behavoir as some aren't considered too reef safe. Large Angels are my favorite fish btw!
