While on a trip to Portland to make a presentation to the Pacific Northwest Marine
Aquarium Society, Steve Tyree went on some coral hunting side trips and made a visit
to the Portland area Reef Store Upscales.
www.upscales.com Steve was shown the stores two main reefs by Travis Heidt. There
were numerous exotic stony coral colonies and many were rare. Travis had a brilliantly
colored Echinophyllia thick plating coral that had a red raspberry coloration that was
similar to the Watermelon Alien-Eye coral. This particular Echinophyllia also has
corallite centers that are colored bright orange or blue (see image below). Travis
acquired the coral from Indonesia sometime in 2004. He believes that in the valley
areas where the coral recieves weaker light the corallite centers are colored blue.
In upper areas the corallite centers become colored bright orange. This gives the
opportunity for reef aquarist to experiment with lower light levels that could
develop a red Echino with blue centers. Travis recommends bright light and he maintains
the coral under 400 watt 20,000 K radiums. Under bright light the corallites develop
bright orange pigmentation. Steve Tyree is maintaining a farmed section of this coral
for reeffarmers.com in his 225 gallon naturally filtered Quad-Zonal Reef Aquarium.
In Steve's captive reef the coral is positoned to recieve moderate to intense light
under a 400 watt 20,000 K Radium Metal Halide. Limited Edition Reservation
price is currently $90 per small sized fragment. The monthly limited edition reservation
schedulescan be found below. Please note effective June 2007 we have changed this corals
harvesting reservation rate to bimonthly. This better matches the corals long term growth
rates in captivity.
Raspberry Echinophyllia Closeup of Orange Corallites
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