Why is yellow coral so common in the wild but rare in the hobby?

[jacrispy516]

Other than yellow colony polyps, yellow fiji leather coral and occasional sun polyps when I walk into any LFS there is very rarely any yellow coral. The few other yellow coral I do see offered is very expensive like gold torches, jawbreaker mushrooms, any zoas with yellow. But whenever I watch diving videos there is an abundance of yellow coral in the wild. Is it just the lighting from the sun or filters from the cameras that makes it appear yellow on video and the more blue lighting in our tanks doesn't bring out those colors? Possibly anything to do with zooxanthellae?

 

[legionofdoon]

I have tritan color deficiency so yellow typically looks different, all I see are brown with maybe orange in your pictures I might be biased but that's what I see.

 

[legionofdoon]

Also a lot of corals that people call red look brown to me as well so never I never understand why people pay so much for them.

 

[jacrispy516]

Also a lot of corals that people call red look brown to me as well so never I never understand why people pay so much for them.

Red corals are actually pretty common and affordable like red monti caps and digitata they definitely pop in a reef compared to brown coral. I wonder if you tried those color blind glasses if they'd show the red colors for you, but don't know too much about them.

There is a mix of some more brown/tan coral in the pics but there is definitely yellow as well.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Blue lights. Alot of the yellow coral are green in blue lighting.

 

[legionofdoon]

Red corals are actually pretty common and affordable like red monti caps and digitata they definitely pop in a reef compared to brown coral. I wonder if you tried those color blind glasses if they'd show the red colors for you, but don't know too much about them.

There is a mix of some more brown/tan coral in the pics but there is definitely yellow as well.

No I haven't tried the glasses, I didn't even realize I had it until I was in my twenties so not worth it. I just thought people had different tastes, I absolutely hate the color called yellow, I always wondered why green traffic lights were blue and I didn't realize pinkish blue is not a color everyone else can see lol. Those red montis only look red to me under strong blue light and even then nothing to write home about same thing with euphyllia and most gonis.