In this week’s AquaNerd POTW, we are treated to a glowing Neon Green Birdsnest Coral seen in the aquarium of a local hobbyist. These corals usually start out very vibrant, but the green quickly fades and the brown skeleton shows through. This makes the coral appear nowhere near as attractive as the one seen above, and causes quite a bit of frustration for . A lot of hobbyists indicate that the neon green usually stays vibrant under less intense lighting, and really glows under actinic lighting (really what coral doesn’t?). Unfortunately though, more intense lighting causes the corals to lose that deep green coloration.

Pictured in this installment of the AquaNerd POTW is a blue Acropora millepora colony glowing under T5HO lighting. This gorgeous coral has light blue and very fuzzy coral polyps that create quite a bit of movement even from a hard coral whose branches are stiff and immobile. The growing tips on this mille are a dark blue and stand out against the much lighter polyps. As this colony grows, it will take on more of a plate-shaped appearance, with branches closer toward the base fusing together.

Pictured in this installment of the AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a closeup shot of a Tyree Pink Lemonade Acropora colony. This picture, unfortunately, does absolutely no justices to this fuzzy Acro. This coral has a brilliant shade of pink with a yellow base and yellow growth tips. The polyps of this colony are fully extended and soaking up the rays from an LED fixture, which are becoming more and more popular in the aquarium lighting industry.

ORA has unleashed an exciting new coral onto the reefkeeping hobby. Their new ORA Purple Undata, a Montipora species of course, is all purple…base, polyps, everything. And apparently ORA has been sitting on this coral for a few years, since they first acquired it way back in 2008 from a European hobbyist. It’s neither here or there, but why does it seem all of the European hobbyists get all the good stuff?

As with all frags from the world famous aquaculturists, the new ORA Purple Undata will be approximately an inch long/wide and will come attached to either a cement and aragonite frag disk.

Official ORA Purple Undata web release seen below.

The ORA Purple Undata is a brightly colored encrusting / plating Montipora. The polyps of this coral are small, purple in color and lightly scattered between the coenosteum ridges. The Purple Undata grows into a thick, dark purple plate with a light purple edge. This is a fast growing coral that thrives under a wide range of lighting conditions. Under intense lighting, this coral’s coloration can take on a blue hue that really stands out. We have been working with this coral since 2008, our original piece came from a European hobbyist.

Frags will be approximately 1 inch and will come attached to a cement/aragonite disk.

Even though we’ve used the Tyree Montipora undata in a previous Picture of the Week, we couldn’t pass on sharing this one as well. The M. undata pictured above is a striking piece. The coral’s white polyps contrast sharply with the tan base and purple growing edges, and it’s honestly surprising that a predominately tan colored coral can look so great. And many hobbyists share this opinion of the coral, especially when it looks like the individual shown above.

Shortly after our story about the The Coral Library was posted, we were contacted and shown the Coral Hub, which is obviously another coral identification website. Despite similar goals, the Coral Hub differs from the previously discussed library in that isn’t just a library of pictures and random information about each species. Instead, it is a resource that tries to educate hobbyists and train them on how to properly identify corals by using workshops, self tests, coral morphology, educational photo slideshows, and even a blog to keep their community updated. There is so much useful information on the Coral Hub website that we were actually overwhelmed.

The portion of the site that covers actual coral identification isn’t entirely different from the Coral Library we previously discussed. Unfortunately though, the Coral Hub is still under construction in this area, so the species level is not currently available. However, you can click on the genus of each coral on the list and be taken to high resolution pictures of the corals, as well as vital statistics, distribution, identification tips, similar genera (along with detailed comparisons), ecological information, and taxonomic changes. Some of this information is obviously far more in depth than the average hobbyist would care for, but the Coral Hub is still an amazing collection of coral information.

We will continue to dig through the Coral Hub and try to uncover all of the nice features the site has to offer. We will also be doing a writeup on the Coral Finder, which is a plastic identification book that is designed to go underwater and help divers properly identify common species of corals.

We’ve finally had time to sort through all of the pictures from our weekend trip to NextWave and get them uploaded. We saw thousands of beautiful corals at the event, including some extremely rare and pricey ones like the Jason Fox Leptoseris shown above. Of course we couldn’t leave empty handed, so we hit up the vendors and wound up with a handful of colorful pieces.

One thing that disappointed me, and sort of make taking pictures difficult, was the overabundance of blue and purple LEDs illuminating the vendor aquariums. Most vendors used actinic lighting exclusively, which caused corals to glow magnificently, but it’s a deceptive practice in my honest opinion. I’ll step off the soap box for now so you can enjoy the pictures below.

The DFW NextWave and Coral Farmers Market event was a huge success.  There were several vendors, all of whom had great looking corals, and plenty of hobbyists looking for exotic pieces. I managed to take home about a dozen pieces, with one accidental duplicate (guess I got too excited), and frags were going like crazy. Before everyone nabbed up the good stuff though, we were able to snap plenty of photos. We’ll release more photos as we sort through them, so stay tuned for more.

This week’s AquaNerd POTW entry comes from our friends at Orphek. The image is of a great close up shot of an Acropora coral with fluorescing green polyps. These corals need intense lighting in order to thrive. For years, their photosynthetic needs were only met by metal halides, VHO, and T5HO. However, in recent years, the LED has become a solid performer and is now capable of providing an energy efficient way to care for these corals.

When ORA first announced their newly redesigned website, we were stoked they would have a blog. It would be a way for them to finally communicate with a public audience. Well, right out of the gate, ORA has a great article on Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) infection in various corals they have aquacultured. The infection was discovered in the coral greenhouse and has been seen in corals such as the ORA Blue Millepora, ORA Plum Crazy, and even their Acropora efflorescens. ORA states that the polyps of these corals are unaffected, with only the base showing any signs of green. Another coral anomaly that ORA wanted to highlight is the mixing of Nuclear Green and Purple Death Palythoa. When these two polyps grow close to each other, the colonies occasionally form what appears to be a mixed polyp. The polyps in between the two colonies express both purple and green coloration.

Unfortunately, the colors in both the mixed Palys and the GFP infected Acros eventually revert back to normal. Because of this, ORA has stated that they will probably never sell corals exhibiting these two color aberrations. The good news though is that ORA has hinted at offereing Purple Death Palys and Nuclear Green Palys sometime in the future.