The Purple Monstor Coral has been written about and talked about by quite a few reefkeepers now.
I thought I would include this Purple Monster Page to give reefkeepers some facts behind the coral. This
coral was exported from the Solomon Islands in 1995. Since then, I have seen thousands of corals exported
from the Solomons and Fiji. I have not seen this coral in any of those shipments since 1995. There are
corals that are similar to the monster and I have given these the name of Purple Monster - Like corals.
What is unique about the monster is the shape of the branches which taper to a point with short rounded
corallites and its unique intense coloration. In fact one of the corals that came in that 1995 shipment
(which unfortunately did not make it) was shaped like a minature christmas tree. The polyps are extremelly
small for an Acropora and white. This species is very difficult to keep and has a very slow growth rate.
Slow growth rates are typical for corals that are difficult and have very small polyps. I believe there are
only a handful of living fragments of this coral with probably less than 6 surviving. I know some people are
out there selling purple monstor fragments but what they probably have are purple monster-like fragments.
The purple monster coral grows too slow to be a good candidate for farming. If you have recieved a
fragment compare it to the above pictures to verify if it is the real Purple Monster.
Veron (author of Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific) has seen the mother colony and could not identify
it. He guessed that it might be an Acropora valida since he has seen that species grow into this unique morphology
or shape. The uniqueness in the form is the tapering shape of the thick branches. They almost look like your typical
christmas tree shape with a fat bottom area that tapers to the pointed tip. The purple monster-like corals are probably
thick acropora loripes or austera. The like imposters do come from Fiji and Solomons, but I have yet to see the real
purple monster morph of A. valida imported since 1995. I have never seen the true exotic morph come in from Fiji.
The name of Purple Monster was coined by Steve Shvetstoff who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally I
thought a good common name would have been the Christmas Tree Coral since that describes the rare form. This
name was already used by another coral and the phrase Purple Monster became the popular name. The League of
Coral Farmers and DE are not farming the real monster simply due to its slow growth rate and lack of fragments. We
will try to bank this particular species for future farming potential.
