Reef2Rainforest feature: CORAL Reef Visions BONUS: UC Masterpiece Valida

The Unique Corals Masterpiece Valida, as featured in the May/June 2022 issue of CORAL Magazine. Photographer: Diego Sanchez/Unique Corals

See more about this Acropora in the May/June CORAL, pages 22-23

CORAL‘s Reef Visions column showcases new and noteworthy corals and other reef life that show up in the current marine aquarium livestock trade. The Reef Visions format gives priority to rich, enthralling photography paired with concise, simplified nuggets of background into the husbandry and story of the featured organisms.

CORAL Magazine, Volume 19-3, May/June 2022. Click cover to subscribe!

However, sometimes our collaborators offer up far more insight than the printed page allows, such as with the coral we showcase here. What follows is the full text, as written by Unique Corals aquaculturist Emilio De Anda.

UC MASTERPIECE VALIDA
Acropora valida
Unique Corals
Van Nuys, California
uniquecorals.com
Geographic Origin: Unique Corals Station (UCSI), Solomon Islands
Light Level: High (700+ PAR)
Flow Level: High and Turbulent. We run a Panta Rhei ECM 75 and a few MP60s on a 500gal system powered by an Abyzz return pump (running at 70% output).

Care Level: Intermediate. Hardy for SPS. This colony has been with us in-house for a little under a year and has been propagated only a few times. We are finally releasing frags to the public and are excited to see what the hobby is able to do with this one-of-a-kind piece.

Notes: A large majority of the Acropora received from our UCSI (Unique Corals Solomon Island) station consists of A. millepora, A. hyacinthus, and A. prostrata. Anything that comes from the Solomon Island station that is not one of the above was essentially one in a million.

As a result, we have held back and are currently farming many species of Solomon Island Acroporas including A. aculeus, A. spathulata, A. sarmentosa, A. chesterfieldensis, A. carduus, A. loripes, and everyone’s favorite…A. microclados!

The UC Masterpiece Valida (A. valida) will be one of the first truly aquacultured Solomon Island pieces to hit our online website, and we could not be any more proud of the result. This specimen contains a true rainbow of colors consisting of purples, blues, greens, whites, oranges, and everything in between.