If you're filling out an SPS reef, you're going to bump into the same 12-15 names over and over again on every reef forum, frag swap, and breeder's site. Here's the canonical list - what they look like, who originated them, and what they cost.
Originator: BigRCorals (Mike Biggar). The ur-cultivar of the modern reef hobby. Intense rainbow gradient with red base, blue tips, green polyps. Polyp extension is everything - a relaxed Walt Disney is unmistakable.
Frag price: $200-400 per polyp (1-2 polyp frag). Mini colony: $600-1500. Browse Walt Disney listings →
Originator: Steve Tyree LE. Pink polyps on lemon-yellow body. Old-school LE that's been propagated for 25+ years. Hardy compared to most LE Acros.
Frag price: $80-200. Browse Pink Lemonade →
Originator: Reef Raft. Red polyps on a teal-green base. One of the most-sought RR releases.
Frag price: $120-250.
Originator: Jason Fox. Blue body + green polyps + yellow tips. Trifecta coloration that holds up under any reef lighting.
Frag price: $150-300.
Originator: Reef Raft USA / The Great Coral. Solid candy-red colony with green polyps. Beginner-friendly LE that grows like a tabling weed.
Frag price: $100-180.
Originator: World Wide Corals. Blue base + yellow polyps + red tips. Bowerbanki growth form - thick branches, small calices.
Frag price: $90-180.
Originator: Tubbs (hobbyist). Stellata-form A. gemmifera with deep violet base + cyan polyps. Old-school hobbyist line.
Frag price: $80-150.
Originator: Hawkins. Dark blue echinata with electric green polyps. The benchmark blue echinata in the hobby.
Frag price: $100-200.
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Browse all SPS coral cultivars →Walt Disney Tenuis consistently tops $200-400 per polyp at frag size, with mini colonies clearing $1,500. Other top-tier cultivars (Pink Lemonade, Reef Raft Krak, JF Bird of Paradise) cluster $80-300 per frag.
Frag chain back to BigRCorals. Authentic Walt Disney has a documented vendor lineage. Photos under blue actinic + white showing the rainbow gradient + relaxed polyp extension are also key tells. Knockoffs typically have a single dominant color (mostly red, mostly blue) without the gradient.
LE (limited edition) cultivars trade on rarity + provenance. The price premium makes sense if (a) the lineage is held by the originator + a small frag-chain, (b) the colony color holds up across generations, and (c) you're buying for the long-term hold (10+ years). For a beginner reef, captive-bred wild-strain Acros at $30-60 are a better entry point.
200-450 PAR at the coral position depending on collection depth. Shallow-water collected cultivars (Strawberry Shortcake, Walt Disney) want 300-450; deepwater Indo collected (Bali Slimer, Tricolors) tolerate 180-280. Acclimate over 4-6 weeks regardless of source - sudden PAR shifts cause STN.
Zooxanthellae density adjusts to new lighting. Brown = excess zoox in lower light or stressed colony. Slowly raise PAR over 8-12 weeks and feed amino acids (Reef Roids, Acropower, Polyplab Reef-Roids) to restart color expression. Browning under shipping stress reverses in 3-6 months with stable parameters.
Named cultivars are propagated from a single mother colony with documented lineage - the patterning is genetically fixed. Wild collected Acros are luck-of-the-draw appearance and may have stress damage from collection. Cultivars carry a 3-5x price premium but guarantee what you see.
Yes if parameter requirements overlap. Acros want 8.0-9.0 dKH, 420-440 Ca, 1300-1450 Mg, NO3 1-5ppm, PO4 0.03-0.06ppm. LPS tolerate 7.5-11 dKH and higher nutrients. The shared zone (8-9 dKH, low nutrients, high light) is reasonable. Avoid mixing Acros with Galaxea or aggressive Euphyllia - chemical warfare hurts the Acros.
ORA Hawkins Echinata, Bali Slimer, ORA Tricolor Valida. All three tolerate 180-280 PAR, medium flow, and slight parameter drift better than the high-end named cultivars. Buy frags (not minicolonies) so you can dial them in cheaply before risking $400+ on a Walt Disney.
Recommendations on this page cross-checked against the following authoritative references and our internal vendor + breeder database.