The first picture shows one of the most beautiful small polyp stony corals in GARF's collection. Notice how large the polyps are and the dark blue color of this Acropora. Our collection of Acropora has grown so large that we have lost track of many of the names these corals are sold under. The species names of many types of Acropora are very difficult to find because the corals have so many different growth forms.

We are happy that Stanley Brown and Steve Tyree will be speakers at GARF's coral farming 2000 seminar this October. These two individuals will be able to identify these SPS corals better than any two other people in the reef industry. Both Stanley and Steve have many years of experience in the United States reef trade and their assistance in naming these corals will be very valuable.

The varied types of Acropora can best be identified as to growth type. Growth type is rapidly becoming the standard trade names for these corals. The beautiful blue, large Polyp Acropora in this picture is commonly sold as Acropora millapora. This growth form is one of our favorites. These corals have a robust, large branched morphology. We have been importing many of these corals that are farmed in the Solomon Islands.

Like all the corals from the ocean they can take up to a year to acclimate to captivity. We are sure that the Zooxanthellae are able to morph into a form that can thrive under aquarium lights in artificial water. We have noticed that many, if not all, sps corals transfer much better from one captive system to another than they do from the ocean to captive systems.

The last of our pictures of the week is a beautiful little soft coral that we received recently in one of our trade boxes. This coral looks like a miniature Xenia, and Sally Jo tells me that it has a body consistency of the Sinularia type soft coral. If you have any of this type of coral and you are interested in trading for some SPS corals please e-mail us. If you have an idea what kind of a coral this is we would be very interested in an e-mail.

This is a very beautiful little coral notice the polyp of another Xenia in the upper right corner. This picture points out one of the best uses of the hundreds of the pictures that Sally Jo takes each week. Our new Sony DSC - f55 camera takes a picture that has 1200 by 1600 pixels. Each picture is over 18 inches wide on the computer screen. This allows even someone with as bad of eyesight as I have to examine these corals very closely. I hope you enjoy these pictures of the week as much as we do.