The captive US exotic coral market has began to see some absolutely incredible Reef Building Stony
Corals exported from Australia during 2007. The first corals that attracted lots of attention were
the Acan Lords, but we also some incredible Australian Favia Brain corals with
exotic pigmentation patterns. The Dragon Soul Favia species Brain has a ringed pigmentation pattern.
The inner corallite wall has a distinct dark purple that contrasts with the center corallite color
and the upper corallite ridge color. This purple inner wall gives the coral a ringed appearence.
Corallite ridges are colored red while the inner corallite area is bright green. The red ridge
coloration can vary depending on the health of the coral. This red fluorescing pigment appears to be
stimulated to fluoresce brighter with some green light illumination. So the ridges may appear more
red under 10,000 to 14,000 K halides. The coral also develops a bright green leading growth edge.
Reeffarmers acquired our seed fragments from Richard McKellips
with mobileaquatic.com . We were also
offered a fragment of the coral from Miguel with
FraggleReef at around the same time. Both Miguel and Richard acquired their corals from the same
exporter/importer and they have mutually agreed upon the Dragon Soul name.
Steve Tyree is maintaining a seed section of this coral for Reeffarmers.com in a 125 gallon
naturally filtered TriZonal system. This system is naturally filtered with a cryptic zone,
filter feeder zone and reef flat exposed zone.
In Steve's captive reef the coral is positioned 20 inches away from a 400 watt 20,000 K Radium
metal halide. The coral appears to develop its most intense coloration under moderate
illumination. It may appear more red under 10,000 to 14,000 K halides.
Please note - in August 2010 Reeffarmers retired this coral. It was mainly due to the coral
not recovering well from fragmentation. We no longer maintain a seed of this coral. There
were also many additional colonies imported.