Purple monster

[larangcon]

The OG PM has white polyps, very difficult to keep and the purple color hard to maintain. With my experience with the PM high light and moving it around will tend to - brown out easily, not sure whether the deep water type body, but mine always liked the mid range and sand level in a 24" high tank. Also very sensitive to low alk swing which will easily RTN. I also had the UC PM which is different but more hardy than the original.

 

[Scorpius]

I can see the white polyps but only at night with a flashlight . Also the color becomes more prominent and purple as it grows . Problem is it grows so slow aand the first one to brown out always when I have an alk swing !!

Regards,
Abhishek

I've found my piece to be hardier the longer I have it. The first six months or so were touch and go though.

 

[jda]

Mr V - what is the source of the white spots on the underside in your photo?

 

[olecaptainj]

Here WAS mine before my last tank breakdown. It WAS a 4x3 colony that had started to stn and I was able to save 3 frags. Turned brown of course and very very very slow to recover color and barely any growth.

Sold em off when I moved 2 years ago.

Came from the same colony in second pic from @spspirate

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I love the PM. I want a piece of the OG PM eventually.

 

[29bonsaireef]

Anyone experienced a difference in growth rate under really high par (800+) vs a more average par? I've seen this piece a few times in the wild and has always been growing super shallow 1-3m.

 

[jda]

I did not have the guts to put this piece outside, but in Missouri, I had a tank one summer under the sun at about 1100 PAR (I measured this years later once PAR meters came about) and red planet, tricolor and a few other basics went from 1" sticks to the almost the size of softballs/cantaloupes in 5 months. A lot of acros can do well under tons of par if the light is high quality enough - there seems to be almost no limit to how much 6500K that you can give a coral and I have seen frag tanks at 800-1000 growing like crazy and having crazy colors under 400W 6500K MH bulbs. I never knew why this was mostly a low K MH thing until recently when reading some posts on a different thread about the importance of red and especially far-red at moving energy between photosystems giving the ability process higher amounts.

I have had PM under 600 PAR for periods of time, but this is not the final resting spot. It did fine... purple changed a bit and polyps got more white.

 

[bubbaque]

How is everyone's PM looking now?

 

[jda]

Here is one of mine next to the Pink Panther. I made this frag on accident a few months ago and it is growing well. ...terrible iPhone pic.

 

[jda]

This little guy has tremendous color, IMO... about 410-425 PAR just barely off to the side of a 14k Phoenix DE bulb. My larger colony is under a glass brace and hard to photograph, but it does not have as much sheen as this one does at 350 PAR under the same type of bulb. You can kinda see the sheen in the horrible photograph.

 

[BoomCorals]

Here is one of mine next to the Pink Panther. I made this frag on accident a few months ago and it is growing well. ...terrible iPhone pic.

I need to hit you up for a PM next time if you have one. Just lost mine in an alk spike while I was on vacation and my reactor had an equipment malfunction. :(

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Bumping this thread for the new reefers who haven’t seen this coral yet.

So who has the biggest colony of pm right now? I have seen a few huge colonies before but not any recently. A lot of these pics in this thread don’t look like the pm but the ones that do look great. I am confused on the white polyp method to id this coral. Big e posted a pic that looks about right and the polyps are reddish purple. Is it only active growth that gets the white polyps?

I picked up a frag from a local guy named Bruce who had the reef keeping tank of the month a few years back and had a stunning large colony back them. He was taking down his tank to start over and had one nice large 1.5” frag in there that I had to buy off him since he could prove lineage back to the original. I hope I can grow it out and give him a piece back. I have been in the hobby for a while and haven’t tried this one yet but figured it’s time.

Let’s see some updated pics! And a picture of any big colonies would be awesome.

 

[OrionN]

Here WAS mine before my last tank breakdown. It WAS a 4x3 colony that had started to stn and I was able to save 3 frags. Turned brown of course and very very very slow to recover color and barely any growth.

Sold em off when I moved 2 years ago.

Came from the same colony in second pic from @spspirate

update on this coral please

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Here is the frag I got. Started growing already which I didn’t think would happen. Sorry for the phone pic.

Without filter

With a filter

 

[DHill6]

PM is so hard to find, I’ve been looking for a very long time. I had a piece years ago from Unique, at the same time I tried a new method without the refugium to go with it, disaster. Enough said there.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

The guy I got this from spread a lot of frags around the area here around dc over the years but I still rarely see any growing colonies in anyone’s tanks. Copps has sold a lot over the years around the area here as well so I would think more people would have growing colonies.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Here is the colony I got my piece from. He ended up putting it on the left side of the new tank he set up so it didn’t get as much light the second time around and it did not do as good so I can believe the high light does help with this coral.

 

[Ezeke1]

I have two colonies of same size. This one is near top of water line under my T5s while other is growing out under Radion G4s. I got my frags from Bruce as well.

 

[RussiReef]

Not a huge colony, about 5x5

 

[toaster77]

nice pic russireef- looks like the real deal. I can confirm the original has white polyps, and is a very slow grower. My colony still persists, will try to get a decent pic up sometime.