TM

Limited Edition
Fire Melon Chalice
A Dave Link Original
Fire Melon Chalice Limited Edition LPS Stony. Dave Link Colony Image.
The original Fire Melon imported colony. Image taken near March/April 2011.
An incredibly colorful Fiji Red Rim chalice. The Whitish Stripes Fluoresce Strongly.
The area toward the far right is more typical of a red and white stripped chalice.
The area to the left shows the exotic nature of the Fire Melon Chalice.
 Image Copyright © 2011 by Dave Link All Rights Reserved.
This is one of the most exotically colored red and white stripped chalices we have seen. Primary coloration on the surface is red with electric white stripes. On many areas though a bluish pigment can develop that can change this chalice into a red rimmed chalice. Corallite centers are solid bright orange to pink and occur within raised wide ridges. These corallite colors and structures give the surface a melon like appearence with the corallite centers representing the melon seeds. That is similar to how the original watermelon chalices were named. So this is apparently a different class of melon chalice.

The Fire Melon Chalice was acquired by David Link around the middle of March 2011. Dave is working on a new web site right now located at meangreencoral.com . The original colony was exported from Fiji and it did experience some die back problems, but that has been common for recently imported red and white stripped chalice corals. This coral is a red/blue white stripped type of chalice. David discovered that fragments did better then the main colony, but recently the main colony has stabalized. We currently believe the coral requires moderate current and weak to moderate lighting. The chalice will become more fluffy or inflated in weaker currents.

Steve Tyree is maintaining a seed section of this coral for Reeffarmers.com in a 130 gallon Raceway Gyre BiZonal system. This system is naturally filtered with a semi-cryptic zone and a reef flat exposed zone. In Steve's captive reef the coral is positioned to receive weak light levels from a 400 watt 20,000 K Radium metal halide. Water current is moderate to strong. The first edition fragemnt sold for $240.00 to private collector James Wensil.

Fire Melon Chalice Limited Edition LPS Stony. Reeffarmers Closeup Image.
This image was taken in late July and shows how the coloration morphed in 4 months.
Corallites are solid orange, while green and pink highlights can occur along edges.
The upper left area shows the blue and red pigment areas develop on the surface.
 Image Copyright © 2011 by Reeffarmers All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2011 by Reeffarmers All Rights Reserved.
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