It was inevitable...I'd have to touch on Acans at some point, right? Thanks to a request from a fellow R2R member, I decided to get on it today and bang out something here...It's definitely not comprehensive, but it's a start...You need to help flesh it out and discuss more!
Oaky...here goes...
There are at least 16 species of Acanthastrea. However, for our aquarium purposes, the ones we see most common are A. lordhowensis, A. bowerbanki, A. hillae, A. maxima, and A. subechinata (which we confusingly refer to as “Acan echinata”, further illustrating the confusion of common names!). Scientists will tell you that The Acan colonies are massive and usually flat. The corallites are either circular or angular in shape. The septa (“teeth”) are thick near the wall of the corallite, becoming thin near the columella, and have tall teeth. The polyps are extended only at night, which should give us our first clue about their care!
Acanthastrea lordhowensis is the glam child of the family- and most of us think of this species she we think of “Acans”, which is fine- ‘cause they’re usually pretty cool! The bulk of this rant will be about this species; most of the Acans are cared for in a similar fashion.
Acanthastrea bowerbanki is the big boy of the family. The corallites are large, very robust-looking, and do very well. Fragging this species is easy, and the frags are easy to take care of long term. They multiply quite rapidly, and can form impressive colonies in a relatively modest amount of time. And the colors of this species are quite a departure from the lordhowensis. Bowerbanki have nice, broad strips of color and beautiful rich centers. Sometimes, you’ll get cool monochromatic ones, too!
The poster children for craziness? Perhaps.
Acanthastrea subechinata is a relatively uncommon form, and has thick, fleshy mantles, covered with little projections, known as “papillae”, which makes this species rather distinctive. The skeleton has large “teeth” that are obvious upon close observation. The centers are almost always contrasting in cold to the exterior of the corallites, but I wouldn’t call that a definitive identifier. In our experience, this species grows a bit slower than A. lordhowensis.
Acanthastrea hillae is the least commonly encountered species in the trade, IMO, and is distinctive in that it has short “valleys” between the corallites and somewhat less “fleshy” appearance than other members of the genus.
Acanthastrea subechinata
They are not all that difficult to keep in a reef aquarium, which is to say, if you can keep most of the stuff we geek out about, you should be able to keep Acans with relatively little additional pain (except financial, ‘cause the darned things are typically a bit pricey!). There are a few things you should make note of, of course!
One thing to know is that they are pretty aggressive, especially larger colonies. I’ve seen them put out some pretty gnarly sweeper tentacles (sorry, my SoCal surf vernacular creeps into my writing sometimes!) that can just fry more docile neighboring corals, so allow some room between them. We have found, as have many hobbyists, that you can typically keep numerous Acans together without issues, but they will attack other species. We have learned this the hard way, and give them respectable space when we place them for sale with other WYSIWYG specimens in our systems!
Also, these corals do shift in color sometimes. What I mean is that, even though your “Subatomic Nuclear Yellow Proton Flux LE” Acan comes to you from “uberhotnesscorals.com” with a lot of yellow in it, the coral may just get a lot more orange over time. What causes this is not entirely understood. It could be environmental (some anecdotal observations suggest EXCESSIVE nutrients or EXCESSIVE cleanliness of water can affect color. Other factors are nutrition, trace elements, temperature, and lighting. Color shifting between the time you purchase your Acan online and the time you receive it is due to Adobe Photoshop! Sure, there may be some color loss and subsequent recovery from shipping (inevitable), but you must be wary of corals “influenced” by color saturation caused by unscrupulous vendors!
Is it real? Ask yourself- do you feel lucky today? DO you? Well, you are. It's real. And real expensive...
By the way, we keep our Acans in water that’s 77.5 degrees F, and they do great. Some reefers keep them in cooler water and report great results, too. Many species come from slightly cooler water temps, and this should be taken into account if purchasing a wild specimen. I think stability is more important than any one number.
You knew that I’d have touch on the inevitable lighting thing at some point, right? Well, here’s the short and sweet of it. People will tell you that they can adapt to really bright lighting over time, and I suppose that they can. However, we talk from first hand experience here- no “regurgitation”, right? We keep them in raceways illuminated by either T5 or Kessil A350W LED systems, mounted about 20”-22” above the waterline, and then about 8” under the water. I guess we’d define that as “moderate” lighting (in traditionally vague “coral vendor-speak”). We tend to skew our lighting towards the bluer end of the spectrum. Growth and appearance are both terrific for us under these lighting schemes! They open up to that nice “puffy” appearance we all love. So, if you ask me how I’d light them in your reef…that’s how I’d light them. Okay, lighting bores me…Really. Choose a good light and just deal. We’re moving on.
How rude, huh? Just being testy this morning!
Water movement is at least as important as light, so we need to address it. Again, deferring to traditional “vendor-speak” we’ll tell you “moderate” flow. What this means is that you don’t want water current slamming directly into your Acans, as it can literally blow the tissue off of them over time, and we just don’t want that. Rather, you want strong, indirect water movement. This also helps with diffusing, to a certain extent, some of the aggression, by keeping gross water movement around the colonies. Again, deferring to our facility and real-world experience, we have significant flow. Anyone who’s ever seen the UC facility is always surprised at the amount of flow we can generate from our hyper-efficient “gyre” methodology system, designed for us by Jake Adams. It’s a LOT of gross water movement and none of the typical, complicated and hapless plumbing and crap you see at every other retail and wholesale facility.Yes, we’re proud of embracing the concept on our systems from day one of our operation. You can read about this methodology in Jake’s writings. It’s kind of like “Stealth” technology. The concepts are out there, you just have to apply them. They work. For everything. Efficiently. Bottom line, keep water moving around the colonies, but slow it down the flow during feeding.
Where would I place an Acan in my reef? I get asked this a lot! I’d place it middle or lower in the reef structure, on rock or rubble. Keeping in mind, of course, the aforementioned water movement and lighting requirements for the corals. Aesthetically, they look cool in rubble or on rocky clefts in your reef, if you ask me. Plus, you can get almost top down viewing, which is best, in my opinion. Besides, when you spend big bucks on a colony of Acans, you want to actually SEE them to their full potential, right? Only then can you impress your friends with your “LE” and “Named” morphs! Oh, boy…you know I’m getting to that part soon…right? “Fasten your seat belts, we are expecting some moderate turbulence ahead…”
But first- what about water conditions. Well, Acans are like most other “LPS” corals, in our experience. They seem to like stability more than any specific environmental numbers. Keep alkalinity up there at normal “reef” levels (9-10dkh works), and don’t stress about a little nitrate and phosphate. I’ve talked about it until you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but I’ll say it again: Your reef’s water doesn’t have to be clean enough to conduct surgery in it! Some nitrate and even phosphate is optimal, providing supplementary nutrition for your corals. Acans like a little “dirt”, if you know what I mean! So don’t stress about 1990’s-style reef sterility! One caveat: Excessively high nitrate levels and depressed alkalinity can cause a variety of problems, including color shifting. Just use common sense.
Like me, Acans love to eat. And they should be fed. A lot. Yep, they will put out a great feeding response, generally after the lights go out, or before they come on. This is optimal time for feeding, and- quite honestly, this is when they should be fed. NOT when we are proudly showing off the corals to the kids. It sucks, but to really makes a difference when you feed corals on THEIR schedule. Part of the cost of ownership, I suppose. If you feed other times, you’ll trigger a feeding response, but not nearly as significant as the response you’ll get when you feed after dark. Trust me on this. What do we feed? use stuff like oyster eggs, finely chopped mysid shrimp, finely pureed seafoods, etc. We’re going to demo some dry foods soon, too, and I’ll let you know how that works out!
Ok, it’s coming…time for a rant.
Rare? Well, not really.
Acan colonies are not cheap. In my opinion, the best ones come from Australian collectors, who know what they’re doing and seem to respect the environment. This kind of quality doesn't come cheaply, as it’s hard work to grab them. Many collector/importers charge by the square centimeter, with a premium attached to the more unusual color morphs. And, quite honestly, the real “A grade” stuff isn’t easy to come by. After a few months and years in this biz, you start to get jaded by what appear to be “common” color morphs. The really “kray-kray” ones stand out absurdly, and command equally absurd prices. Just like diamonds…there are grades, and soem are really expensive. So, if you receive a much less than warm and friendly response when you try to bargain down your coral guy for a small Acan colony, that’s why. He pays a lot for this stuff.
That being said, price gouging is nothing new, and it’s been going on a long time, unfortunately. Not every Acan is “super rare”. I can show you 40 or so colonies in our raceways now that would knock your socks off, but they are remarkably common. It’s the truly unusual colors, like yellows, that really grab you. In my opinion, selling colonies is cool, but the prices are typically fair, believe it or not! (Hey, and am I NOT the first to bash my industry practices when I see stupidity? So you know I’m being real here!). Where it gets stupid, IMO, is the price of frags. I mean, charge what you can, but think about the longer term: If you truly propagate some corals, the price goes down, but you’ll sell a ton more. A much more sustainable model, right?
A. bowerbanki. A Scoly "mimic?" Perhaps?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Hacking up a freshly imported wild colony and calling it “propagated” and charging bend-over prices for the frags is- well- lame. Period. It’s “chop-shopping.” At the very least, I can respect the practice when it’s simply known as “fragging”. But to imply, as some vendors do, that they are “propagating” the corals- is misleading, unfair, and unethical, IMO. Cutting up a colony, healing growing out some frags to salable size, and continuing to frag them for more pieces is a much more acceptable definition of propagating. Look, I’m not getting up on a high horse and saying that every time you chop up a wild colony and sell it you’re unethical or stupid. What I am complaining about is the way stuff is marketed. Why not be honest? “We purchased this crazy colony from Australia, and fragged it up. You’re getting one of the first frags. We have limited quantities, and it’s expensive.” There. Easy.
However, for some reason, we feel it’s necessary to name stuff, chop it up, come up with a ridiculous price, and sell it as “LE”. That term makes me want to vomit. Acans were the mide 2000’s poster child for stupidity, IMO. It’s only “LE” because no one took the time to grow it out. The future of our industry may be “growing it out”, because that’s all we may have one day if importations are banned. Short-sidedness is folly. So chopping up every single wild coral into little bits and selling the whole thing may be the instrument of extinction for the industry if we’re not careful. A quick buck today will be gone tomorrow. All I’m preaching here is that we employ some common sense and hold on to colonies. Hobbyists should do the same.
Okay, I’m off my soapbox…for now.
With that part out of the way, I’d tell you that “naming” morphs is fun, helps create an active culture, and does provide some marketing and branding leverage for a vendor. Just don’t go overboard with it, ok? Because, as I’ve said, some of the stuff that people come up with ridiculous names for and market it like it’s the only one on the planet is not all that exclusive, trust me. I can think of at least 40 reasons right now why I’m right.
So there you have it- the quick and dirty on Acans.
As always, this is just based on some of my personal experience, and yours may vary significantly. We’d love to have your contributions to the body of knowledge of these cool corals, so chime in.
And as always…
Stay Wet.
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
Oaky...here goes...
There are at least 16 species of Acanthastrea. However, for our aquarium purposes, the ones we see most common are A. lordhowensis, A. bowerbanki, A. hillae, A. maxima, and A. subechinata (which we confusingly refer to as “Acan echinata”, further illustrating the confusion of common names!). Scientists will tell you that The Acan colonies are massive and usually flat. The corallites are either circular or angular in shape. The septa (“teeth”) are thick near the wall of the corallite, becoming thin near the columella, and have tall teeth. The polyps are extended only at night, which should give us our first clue about their care!
Acanthastrea lordhowensis is the glam child of the family- and most of us think of this species she we think of “Acans”, which is fine- ‘cause they’re usually pretty cool! The bulk of this rant will be about this species; most of the Acans are cared for in a similar fashion.
Acanthastrea bowerbanki is the big boy of the family. The corallites are large, very robust-looking, and do very well. Fragging this species is easy, and the frags are easy to take care of long term. They multiply quite rapidly, and can form impressive colonies in a relatively modest amount of time. And the colors of this species are quite a departure from the lordhowensis. Bowerbanki have nice, broad strips of color and beautiful rich centers. Sometimes, you’ll get cool monochromatic ones, too!
The poster children for craziness? Perhaps.
Acanthastrea subechinata is a relatively uncommon form, and has thick, fleshy mantles, covered with little projections, known as “papillae”, which makes this species rather distinctive. The skeleton has large “teeth” that are obvious upon close observation. The centers are almost always contrasting in cold to the exterior of the corallites, but I wouldn’t call that a definitive identifier. In our experience, this species grows a bit slower than A. lordhowensis.
Acanthastrea hillae is the least commonly encountered species in the trade, IMO, and is distinctive in that it has short “valleys” between the corallites and somewhat less “fleshy” appearance than other members of the genus.
Acanthastrea subechinata
They are not all that difficult to keep in a reef aquarium, which is to say, if you can keep most of the stuff we geek out about, you should be able to keep Acans with relatively little additional pain (except financial, ‘cause the darned things are typically a bit pricey!). There are a few things you should make note of, of course!
One thing to know is that they are pretty aggressive, especially larger colonies. I’ve seen them put out some pretty gnarly sweeper tentacles (sorry, my SoCal surf vernacular creeps into my writing sometimes!) that can just fry more docile neighboring corals, so allow some room between them. We have found, as have many hobbyists, that you can typically keep numerous Acans together without issues, but they will attack other species. We have learned this the hard way, and give them respectable space when we place them for sale with other WYSIWYG specimens in our systems!
Also, these corals do shift in color sometimes. What I mean is that, even though your “Subatomic Nuclear Yellow Proton Flux LE” Acan comes to you from “uberhotnesscorals.com” with a lot of yellow in it, the coral may just get a lot more orange over time. What causes this is not entirely understood. It could be environmental (some anecdotal observations suggest EXCESSIVE nutrients or EXCESSIVE cleanliness of water can affect color. Other factors are nutrition, trace elements, temperature, and lighting. Color shifting between the time you purchase your Acan online and the time you receive it is due to Adobe Photoshop! Sure, there may be some color loss and subsequent recovery from shipping (inevitable), but you must be wary of corals “influenced” by color saturation caused by unscrupulous vendors!
Is it real? Ask yourself- do you feel lucky today? DO you? Well, you are. It's real. And real expensive...
By the way, we keep our Acans in water that’s 77.5 degrees F, and they do great. Some reefers keep them in cooler water and report great results, too. Many species come from slightly cooler water temps, and this should be taken into account if purchasing a wild specimen. I think stability is more important than any one number.
You knew that I’d have touch on the inevitable lighting thing at some point, right? Well, here’s the short and sweet of it. People will tell you that they can adapt to really bright lighting over time, and I suppose that they can. However, we talk from first hand experience here- no “regurgitation”, right? We keep them in raceways illuminated by either T5 or Kessil A350W LED systems, mounted about 20”-22” above the waterline, and then about 8” under the water. I guess we’d define that as “moderate” lighting (in traditionally vague “coral vendor-speak”). We tend to skew our lighting towards the bluer end of the spectrum. Growth and appearance are both terrific for us under these lighting schemes! They open up to that nice “puffy” appearance we all love. So, if you ask me how I’d light them in your reef…that’s how I’d light them. Okay, lighting bores me…Really. Choose a good light and just deal. We’re moving on.
How rude, huh? Just being testy this morning!
Water movement is at least as important as light, so we need to address it. Again, deferring to traditional “vendor-speak” we’ll tell you “moderate” flow. What this means is that you don’t want water current slamming directly into your Acans, as it can literally blow the tissue off of them over time, and we just don’t want that. Rather, you want strong, indirect water movement. This also helps with diffusing, to a certain extent, some of the aggression, by keeping gross water movement around the colonies. Again, deferring to our facility and real-world experience, we have significant flow. Anyone who’s ever seen the UC facility is always surprised at the amount of flow we can generate from our hyper-efficient “gyre” methodology system, designed for us by Jake Adams. It’s a LOT of gross water movement and none of the typical, complicated and hapless plumbing and crap you see at every other retail and wholesale facility.Yes, we’re proud of embracing the concept on our systems from day one of our operation. You can read about this methodology in Jake’s writings. It’s kind of like “Stealth” technology. The concepts are out there, you just have to apply them. They work. For everything. Efficiently. Bottom line, keep water moving around the colonies, but slow it down the flow during feeding.
Where would I place an Acan in my reef? I get asked this a lot! I’d place it middle or lower in the reef structure, on rock or rubble. Keeping in mind, of course, the aforementioned water movement and lighting requirements for the corals. Aesthetically, they look cool in rubble or on rocky clefts in your reef, if you ask me. Plus, you can get almost top down viewing, which is best, in my opinion. Besides, when you spend big bucks on a colony of Acans, you want to actually SEE them to their full potential, right? Only then can you impress your friends with your “LE” and “Named” morphs! Oh, boy…you know I’m getting to that part soon…right? “Fasten your seat belts, we are expecting some moderate turbulence ahead…”
But first- what about water conditions. Well, Acans are like most other “LPS” corals, in our experience. They seem to like stability more than any specific environmental numbers. Keep alkalinity up there at normal “reef” levels (9-10dkh works), and don’t stress about a little nitrate and phosphate. I’ve talked about it until you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but I’ll say it again: Your reef’s water doesn’t have to be clean enough to conduct surgery in it! Some nitrate and even phosphate is optimal, providing supplementary nutrition for your corals. Acans like a little “dirt”, if you know what I mean! So don’t stress about 1990’s-style reef sterility! One caveat: Excessively high nitrate levels and depressed alkalinity can cause a variety of problems, including color shifting. Just use common sense.
Like me, Acans love to eat. And they should be fed. A lot. Yep, they will put out a great feeding response, generally after the lights go out, or before they come on. This is optimal time for feeding, and- quite honestly, this is when they should be fed. NOT when we are proudly showing off the corals to the kids. It sucks, but to really makes a difference when you feed corals on THEIR schedule. Part of the cost of ownership, I suppose. If you feed other times, you’ll trigger a feeding response, but not nearly as significant as the response you’ll get when you feed after dark. Trust me on this. What do we feed? use stuff like oyster eggs, finely chopped mysid shrimp, finely pureed seafoods, etc. We’re going to demo some dry foods soon, too, and I’ll let you know how that works out!
Ok, it’s coming…time for a rant.
Rare? Well, not really.
Acan colonies are not cheap. In my opinion, the best ones come from Australian collectors, who know what they’re doing and seem to respect the environment. This kind of quality doesn't come cheaply, as it’s hard work to grab them. Many collector/importers charge by the square centimeter, with a premium attached to the more unusual color morphs. And, quite honestly, the real “A grade” stuff isn’t easy to come by. After a few months and years in this biz, you start to get jaded by what appear to be “common” color morphs. The really “kray-kray” ones stand out absurdly, and command equally absurd prices. Just like diamonds…there are grades, and soem are really expensive. So, if you receive a much less than warm and friendly response when you try to bargain down your coral guy for a small Acan colony, that’s why. He pays a lot for this stuff.
That being said, price gouging is nothing new, and it’s been going on a long time, unfortunately. Not every Acan is “super rare”. I can show you 40 or so colonies in our raceways now that would knock your socks off, but they are remarkably common. It’s the truly unusual colors, like yellows, that really grab you. In my opinion, selling colonies is cool, but the prices are typically fair, believe it or not! (Hey, and am I NOT the first to bash my industry practices when I see stupidity? So you know I’m being real here!). Where it gets stupid, IMO, is the price of frags. I mean, charge what you can, but think about the longer term: If you truly propagate some corals, the price goes down, but you’ll sell a ton more. A much more sustainable model, right?
A. bowerbanki. A Scoly "mimic?" Perhaps?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Hacking up a freshly imported wild colony and calling it “propagated” and charging bend-over prices for the frags is- well- lame. Period. It’s “chop-shopping.” At the very least, I can respect the practice when it’s simply known as “fragging”. But to imply, as some vendors do, that they are “propagating” the corals- is misleading, unfair, and unethical, IMO. Cutting up a colony, healing growing out some frags to salable size, and continuing to frag them for more pieces is a much more acceptable definition of propagating. Look, I’m not getting up on a high horse and saying that every time you chop up a wild colony and sell it you’re unethical or stupid. What I am complaining about is the way stuff is marketed. Why not be honest? “We purchased this crazy colony from Australia, and fragged it up. You’re getting one of the first frags. We have limited quantities, and it’s expensive.” There. Easy.
However, for some reason, we feel it’s necessary to name stuff, chop it up, come up with a ridiculous price, and sell it as “LE”. That term makes me want to vomit. Acans were the mide 2000’s poster child for stupidity, IMO. It’s only “LE” because no one took the time to grow it out. The future of our industry may be “growing it out”, because that’s all we may have one day if importations are banned. Short-sidedness is folly. So chopping up every single wild coral into little bits and selling the whole thing may be the instrument of extinction for the industry if we’re not careful. A quick buck today will be gone tomorrow. All I’m preaching here is that we employ some common sense and hold on to colonies. Hobbyists should do the same.
Okay, I’m off my soapbox…for now.
With that part out of the way, I’d tell you that “naming” morphs is fun, helps create an active culture, and does provide some marketing and branding leverage for a vendor. Just don’t go overboard with it, ok? Because, as I’ve said, some of the stuff that people come up with ridiculous names for and market it like it’s the only one on the planet is not all that exclusive, trust me. I can think of at least 40 reasons right now why I’m right.
So there you have it- the quick and dirty on Acans.
As always, this is just based on some of my personal experience, and yours may vary significantly. We’d love to have your contributions to the body of knowledge of these cool corals, so chime in.
And as always…
Stay Wet.
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
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