Whatever happened to "blue coral"?

[bzb]

Some of you older guys may remember that back in the 90s and early 2000s, you weren't cool unless you had some blue ridge coral in your fish only tank. I remember reading that these "collector shells" were actually being taken out of the ocean and it was bad to purchase them. My last

Just thinking I don't ever see them for sale in LFS anymore, and haven't really seen them in tanks either. Is this a species that folks have figured out how to grow in our tanks now? Does it look different when it's alive? I assume the color would just get lost in the blues we run nowadays.

I'm talking about this stuff... but my Google Fu is failing on me:

 

[ichthyoid]

It’s still for sale but the price has gone up -

BLUE RIDGE CORAL

seagifts.com

 

[ichthyoid]

Sad to see. I remember going to Pier 1 Imports and buying coral skeletons to put in my aquarium back in the 80’s. They were sold as popular room decorations for bookshelves, curio cabinets & whatnot.

 

[FutureInterest]

I've seen them in a few tanks locally and they are just not frequently grown or traded... Primarily because they are prettier dead than alive . When alive they are brownish with white polyps I believe... Cool growth structure though.

 

[bzb]

I've seen them in a few tanks locally and they are just not frequently grown or traded... Primarily because they are prettier dead than alive . When alive they are brownish with white polyps I believe... Cool growth structure though.

Ahhh that makes total sense, then. Yes, agree... very cool structure. What else grows with that kind of form? It seems like there are some montis that grow in similar shapes but much thinner.

 

[ActiveAngel]

I have this in my tank. It grows Super fast. And I have even had frags for sale at the last several frag swaps. there are a few others in this club that have it too.

and yes, like Jin said, it’s more beautiful dead than alive. Lol

 

[bzb]

I have this in my tank. It grows Super fast. And I have even had frags for sale at the last several frag swaps. there are a few others in this club that have it too.

and yes, like Jin said, it’s more beautiful dead than alive. Lol

Got any pics? I may be interested in some of this!

 

[ActiveAngel]

Got any pics? I may be interested in some of this!

I don’t have any frags available at the moment. But I’ll consider fragging it soon and will let you know.

@FutureInterest nailed it exactly though. When it’s alive, it is a brown coral with white-ish colored polyps and it’s not flourescent. I keep it for the cool structure once it’s older.

 

[jcook54]

I've got some that I can frag if you want a piece. I keep it because it's a cool species but it doesn't look like much of anything.

 

[Primereddime]

I've got some that I can frag if you want a piece. I keep it because it's a cool species but it doesn't look like much of anything.

I'd be interested I need to see about getting a piece of stunner from you as well

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

[bzb]

I've got some that I can frag if you want a piece. I keep it because it's a cool species but it doesn't look like much of anything.

Crazy enough, I’d be interested!

My wife loves mid-day of my tank, when the whites are all on and everything is kinda brown. She says it reminds her of our snorkeling adventures... definitely truth to that.