What can "brown" do for you? A lot, actually! The UC "Ugliest Coral Contest is BACK!"

[uniquecorals]

These are turd brown star polyps, the picture actually is more colorful than reality.. The ugly cousin of green star polyps.. They grow twice as fast and are uber ugly..

Fast AND ugly...Dang!

 

[uniquecorals]

This is either Monti confusa or spongodes, but the pic when I bought it was green, it was delivered brown and hasn't colored up at all and has barely grown, I've had it about a year.. Given it high light, low light, high flow, low flow, lower nutrients, etc.. Stooopid coral..

Montipora "Confused-a" is the lesser-known species of the genus, I think! LOL

 

[uniquecorals]

Bought this from someone in my reef club. Was a rainbow pocillopora lol looked amazing for about 2 weeks then it just went brown. Have fragged it several times and it has grown alot. It was about the size of a thumbtack when i recieved it.

This was a dark blue sps with green polyps it has encrusted the whole plug now and remains brown lol. It was a ora something can't remember the name.

For ORA's sake, please don't regain your memory...Well done, my friend! Solid entry!

 

[Jlobes]

dang it...i knew there was something i was supposed to do last night. mine arent that brown. just not that nice and taking over fast. oh well. good luck to all who entered

 

[Lovge]

I love how it goes from "Hulks Junk" to "Mr. Hankie the Christmas Poo" LOL add a lil santa hat and he will start waving and saying "HIDEY HO!"

You want ugly? I got ugly for you Here is an acropora abrotanoides that I had for over a year. I called it the "Hulks Junk". I generally stay away from thick corals, especially corals with a reputation for being as difficult as an abrotanoides. It was on sale at a LFS for $20 so I gave it a shot. I actually kept good color for around 6 months, but after a cyano remover dose, it lost all the green and went tan on me. For the last 8 month I have kept this coral and it has been dormant, until recently. I transferred my previous 60 gallon into a new 115g custom cube 10 weeks ago. The abrotanoides liked the new tank and showed some better pe and more of a turd brown instead of a tan brown. It looked healthier and actually started showing small growth nubs. Ironically I just got rid of it today. I couldn't stand looking at it anymore, and I need the real estate for a shortcake


Recent Pic (Don't stare too long)

IMG_7355 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

Early pic shortly after purchase

IMG_3676 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

Several months down the road

IMG_4908 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

 

[Beradd]

Good luck everyone who entered...someone is getting some seriously cool frags from some seriously cool people.

 

[Rexster20002000]

So who was the winner(s)?

 

[GHill762]

So who was the winner(s)?

+1.. I think it's mandatory to do drawings/winner announcements late on this forum :tongue:

 

[uniquecorals]

+1.. I think it's mandatory to do drawings/winner announcements late on this forum :tongue:

Yeah, it's hard to run a business AND a cool contest, LOL! Besides, you know we always change stuff up as we go with these things...you wouldn't expect it any other way!

LOL Announcement up tonight!

Scott

 

[GHill762]

Yeah, it's hard to run a business AND a cool contest, LOL! Besides, you know we always change stuff up as we go with these things...you wouldn't expect it any other way!

LOL Announcement up tonight!

Scott

lol, it's certainly understandable.. just funny.. Rev does it too, he's days late sometimes.. it's all good, we all have lives.

 

[Mole]

A-mazing! The "Blooper-Man" Monti! Well done...well done!

I was actually trying to stay away from the new "name" for this, which is...

Pooperman Monti

 

[ToXIc]

dang it.. and my doo doo brown tri-color valida started to color up....

 

[RiverRat]

dang it.. and my doo doo brown tri-color valida started to color up....

Haha .....what terrible luck

I love reading all these stories

 

[Rexster20002000]

Oh, it's all good. I'm new to this forum and I thought I just missed it. Ty

 

[Acroholics]

Taken with my iPhone 5, tried to wash out the blue a bit but not great with snap seed.

From left to right...

Brown SSC
Brown Red Planet
Brown Rose Milli
SUPER BROWN Tyree tricolor

 

[evolved]

dang it.. and my doo doo brown tri-color valida started to color up....

But there's a difference between a browned-out acro, and a brown acro.

/shameless plug

 

[pgravis]

I got my first reef tank in 2008 and I was hooked, loved every aspect of it. After having the tank up for a couple years, we (my wife and I)decide to sell the house and move. We had bought an old house that needed to be restored so we needed to move in with my sister. So I broke down my 65 gallon tank and transferred my favorite pieces and fish to a Red Sea 34 gallon tank. Well, long story short is that trying to maintain a reef at one location while you spend most of your free time working on a house and working full time is difficult! So I sold everything and figured once I was settled I would get a new tank. Well, once settled, I realized all my money went to my house, but I was determined to have a tank, especially after seeing Sunny D palys. They were my dream coral! So I scrounged a 20 gallon long and got it set up and cycled. Lighting was sufficient for zoas and lps, so I dropped 50 bucks on an amazing little frag of sunny d's. The day had finally arrived! They had great color, the speckles were awesome. Everything I wanted. Well a year later, I have exactly as many polyps as I did when I bought them and they have faded into a lackluster coral that is hardly noticeable. The plus side to this story is that once again sunny d's have inspired an upgrade. I recently started a 60 gallon cube build that I am hoping will have some nicer equipment than I am running now with the hope of bringing the color back on these! Anyway, here they are:

 

[pgravis]

Not sure if there was still time to enter, but it was worth a shot!

 

[a49panhead]

Here is my Kenya tree. Bought as a sapling and is now bigger then a softball. And my brown and rust acon I got almost dead but is doing awesome, cant get pics to up load

 

[uniquecorals]

Ahh...it's getting near the time that the deciding votes will be cast for the winner in the "UC Ugliest Coral Contest", version 2.0!!!

In the interest of full disclosure (and, because it's fun to see these "golden dreams"), I will reveal the FINALSTS...followed by our grand winner later tonight!

I know, we drive you crazy with this stuff, and that's okay- we like to make you a bit crazy at times, really.


SO, without further blabbing- here are the coveted FINAL FOUR!!! (In no particular order, of course!):

Jackson6745's incredible "Hulk's Junk" Acropora...I mean, with a name like that, it was almost assured passage to the Final Three, right?

Mike J's "Cookie Dough"...The sheer beauty of blandness, on display for all to worship!

Igarc009 "Space Evaders" Pectinia...Proving that the universe is full of ugly corals...we just happen to keep a few of them now and then!

Daimyo68's unremarkable "Scripps Acro", a coral so bland that ORA is disavowing any and all knowledge of this frag.

So there you have it, Golden Coral fans- the Final Four for the contest. Let me just tell you that judging this contest was no easy task. Our crew had to sift through the largest field of ugly corals ever assembled in one place that didn't have a "dot com" after it! All sorts of corals were represented, which made judging tougher and more demanding than ever. Each and every entry was a loser- er, uh- "winner" in its own right...Ultimately, we had to narrow the field.

Stay tuned for the big winner later tonight! Until them, take one last look at the field of blandness, and savor the satisfaction that only a dull coral can provide!

Regards,

Scott Fellman and the UC Crew