It’s not often we can say anAcroporacolony isthisorthatensisbut in this case, Charlie Veron himself stopped by theRoute 66 Marinebooth at MACNA and he identified two ‘deepwater’Acroporaas beingAcropora elegans. LikeAcropora derawanensisfrom a couple weeks back,Acropora elegansand other smooth-skin Acros are really in a league of their own, with unusual shapes and colors which are very different from your typical colored sticks of staghorn, pillow and platingAcroporastrains.
光滑的皮肤深水记述typi不同cal SPS corals in that they need much less light and water flow than is usually given in an SPS reef aquarium – these are best placed in a community reef tank with moderate but direct lighting. Many reefers are still unaware of how beautiful and colorful these loose branching corals can become, because like theAcropora eleganspictured here they are often pale colored on arrival and they take longer to come back to full growth and vitality than their shallower water counterparts.
Deepwater Acros also tend to grow slower so that is why we haven’t seen a plethora of frags of the deepwater acros being traded across the country. We’ve seen a decent number ofAcropora elegansand similar species over the years but the specimens that Route 66 brought to Des Moines were some of the best colonies we’ve seen in a long time as far as shape and size goes. Hoepfully they’ll make it to a perfect home where the tan one can become mostly green with purple tips and the other one looks like it’ll go mostly purple.
