Great to hear the PB is doing so well for you, Steve! The Raptors is also growing well, and looks fantastic. You still need to come see my tank!
Hmmm, the story of the PB. Well, I guess it started with my friend Jessica (Treylane). She was on the hunt for those St Thomas mushrooms. She found a vendor Florida selling some (I think it was a vendor – and actually, I
think I once saw her comment here on R2R about the PB, so maybe she’ll chime in on where the PB was collected). This vendor sent a few pictures of other stuff she had to Jessica, including a big pink chalice colony. This was around September '08.
Now, I have to tell you, this was just on the heels of me learning my lesson about buying tiny eyeless Tyree watermelon frags, so I was sort of fed up with tiny chalice frags for the moment. I told Jessica (since she was the one in communication with the vendor) that I wanted at least two eyes of the thing. I think it was going to be $70 per eye at the time. Well, eventually dealings were made, and three of us (me, Jessica, and David) ended up just buying the whole colony, and splitting it. We referred to it as “pinkie” this whole time. I remember Jessica commenting on how quickly some shipping damage healed once she had it in her tank. This was a nice surprise, again after my experience with the pink WM. So she cut it into approximate thirds. I eventually ended up with the smallest, yet most ungainly piece. It was my birthday present to me that year. :bigsmile: When I first got it:
That year at RAP (October '08), I saw the Vivid Echino at their booth, and was like “Hey, that looks just like pinkie!” I was rather unceremoniously informed by various people that I can’t do that. I can’t call it the Vivid Echino because it didn’t come from Vivid. OK. Later, a bunch of us were all talking about this subject in the chatbox on my club forum, and started throwing around funny names. I commented on how “mammary” the colony looked, and I think (knowing her humor) that it was Jessica that suggested *******. Needless to say, Pink ******* got a resounding YES vote. So, all you conspiracy theorists can suck it; that’s how the name came to be. Not because we were trying to market it; and not because we were trying to pull a fast one and pass off the Vivid Echino as something else. We were just being funny and silly, and following the “naming rules” as they were. The two corals were, after all, collected at least 1.5 years apart! None of us were selling or trading the coral at that time.
Fast forward… Eventually I think David made the first few trades (hence Marvin’s “sickest chalice” thread). I made one trade for an OS chalice.
First frag I ever made (I was so nervous LOL):
When I made that frag, my colony actually broke, and a decent sized piece came off. I kept this piece growing on the other side of my tank, as backup. Eventually I sold it to Fish n Frags.
Piece that went to FnF eventually:
He was the first to set a public price of $325 per eye. At the same time I traded two pieces with Fonda and Alicia (both very generous to me, which I will not forget). And I sold a couple pieces. Then it got nuts. Everyone’s your best friend and everyone expects you to trade with them or sell it to them at the “friend” price. It sucked, because a lot of people got bent (even people I like), taking it personally that I didn’t want to cut 20 of my 24 eyes and sell/trade them. But that’s another story…
Fast forward again. Jessica lost her colony. David still has his (I just saw it this weekend).
