How do you describe a coral like this ? Its pigmentation is so intense that it
appears completely saturating under strong halides. Almost as if the pigments
have crossed into a pure fluorescent illumination stage. Suffice it to say that
those of us who have been keeping reef building stony corals since the early
1990's, have been dreaming that one day we would find stony corals
as colorful as this new Watermelon Alien Eye Coral. Magnificent coloration. This
Echinophyllia-like species is primarily bright pink and has some blue background
coloration. Corallites are bright green and the edge of the colony has a bright
green trim. The green trim can also contain other pigments. That combination of
colors gives this coral an overall similarity to a slice of watermelon. This is
probably why the initial discoverer of this coral gave the coral the name watermelon.
Its overall distinctive coloration is enough to make this a visually stunning coral.
A more detailed examination of the bright green corallites reveals that there are
dots of color that appear to have been splashed on the green (see closeup images
below). Without a doubt this pigmentation represents a whole new realm of coloration
for SPS corals. Recently echinophyllia corals with trim coloration and brightly
colored corallites have been referred to as 'Alien Eye' corals. This began with
the Tubs (John Susbilla) Alien Eye Echinophyllia echinoporides. Alien eye refers
to the strange eye-like look that the corallites can exhibit when the polyps
mouths are open (see images below). Reeffarmers.com has acquired our fragment
from Hugo Zuniga of Orange County California (snipersps). We are very grateful
to Hugo for bringing this magnificent coral to the attention of reeffarmers.com .
Hugo acquired his seed section from the original captive discoverer of
this coral Ron Johncola. Ron runs the Aquarium Service Business
Reef Tec Designs in Orange County California.
Ron apparently has an incredible eye for the truelly rare coral. Steve Tyree is
maintaining a farmed section of this coral for reeffarmers.com in one of his 125 gallon
naturally filtered Tri-Zonal Reef Aquariums. In Steve's captive reef the coral
is positoned to recieve moderate to weak light under a 400 watt 20,000 K Radium
Metal Halide. Limited Edition Reservation price is currently $165 per small sized
fragment. The monthly limited edition reservation schedules can be found below.
Reeffarmers Seed Fragment Sept 27th 2005
Note this is the true coloration for the original Watermelon Alien Eye
The main coloration varies in reefs from Pinkish Red to Pink.
TM
