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TM
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Limited Edition
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The Red Watermelon Chalice has all the pigment characteristics of the original Watermelon Chalice, but instead of bright pink this Watermelon has Bright Red Pigments on its main base. This bright red pigment makes the new coral even more intensely pigmented then the original. Reeffarmers.com acquired our fragment from Hugo Zuniga of Orange County California snipersps. Hugo found this coral in a retail shop within Southern California during late summer 2005. It originally only had a faint reddish pigmentation over its surface and was slightly damaged. Hugo was able to save a small section of the original colony. The bright red pigment then slowly developed within a few months. Hugo eventually sold 1/2 of his parent colony to Dave Whitham davewhit3@cablemo.net. Fragments of Dave's second generation coral originally sold in the $400 to $500 price range.
Reeffarmers discovered, as many others have, that these chalice corals can be difficult to fragment. Fragments have a decent chance of success, but the main seed colony sometimes will stop growing for months after harvesting a fragment. This caused Reeffarmers to get way behind on the reservation schedule. And we eventually lost our original seed. We have been looking for a true lineage replacement for a couple of years. Finally a true Red Watermelon lineage fragment became available. We acquired this fragment from Fins and Critters during the 2010 Reef-A-Palooza reef event.
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 positoned to recieve moderate to weak light under a 400 watt 20,000 K Radium Metal Halide. Limited Edition Reservation price is currently $170 per small sized fragment.
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Three Alien Eye Corals from Hugo Zuniga's Reef Late January 2006. The Alien Eye on the far left is the original |
