CORAL Magazine New Issue “OCTOCORALS” Inside Look

Cover of CORAL Magazine Volume 17, Issue 1 – OCTOCORALS – January/February 2020. On the cover: Ghost Goby, Pleurosicya mossambica. Background: Unidentified octocoral, Great Barrier Reef. Gray Bell/Oceanwide Images.

Table of Contents for the January/February 2020 issue of CORAL Magazine. You can view this TOC online.

While stony corals were well known by the late 1700s, descriptions of Octocorals weren’t made until the 19th and 20th centuries. Why is that? Daniel Knop explains the fundamental cause in his Letter from Europe.

On the editor’s page, get a boots-on-the-ground update from Kim Koch, a spokesperson for the aquarium fishermen in West Hawai’i, with the latest update in what some might call Hawaii’s Tang War. You can read this story online!

Reef News presents findings and happenings of note in the marine world. In this issue: New protections for coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico, another variety of Acropora-eating flatworm has been discovered, and a timely update on efforts to reopen Hawaii’s Aquarium Fishery from PIJAC.

REEF VISIONS is sure to excite the coral reef enthusiast in all of us with a visual feast of rarities and oddities. The highly coveted Cherry Corals 21 Tails Torch, photographed by May Fox for Jason Fox Signature Corals, captures the opening spread in this first installment for 2020.

Ronald L. Shimek, Ph. D., presents a deep dive into the heart of the Octocorallia, noting that “while there is some undeniable SPS snobbery afoot in the reef aquarium hobby today, the fact is that the octocorals are every bit as interesting and complex as their stony counterparts, and many continue to present us with feeding and husbandry challenges that would make a mere Acropora blanch.”

Fresh from ocean farms and land-based coral aquaculture systems, commercial-scale production of soft corals ensures a steady supply of easy-to-keep and rare, colorful varieties. Matt Pedersen reports back from coral farmers around the globe, sharing their insights into what’s being produced and the challenges they face.

Getting the gorgeous Carnation Corals of the genus Dendronephthya to thrive—or even survive—is one of the last major challenges in the modern reef aquarium hobby. Dr. Dieter Brockmann breaks down the three main husbandry challenges and discusses how the determined aquarist might overcome them to find success.

XENIA & XENIIDS—Beautiful, beguiling, and sometimes a bane: Felicia McCaulley shares everything you need to know about these popular yet occasionally problematic pulsing soft corals.

Where mighty ocean currents rage, marine life thrives. On the fringes of the deep ocean, inshore fishes congregate in roving communities, and one storied place for adventuresome divers to see them is southern Sulawesi. Journey there with this travelogue from Werner Fiedler.

Roland Wagner’s textbook 250-gallon room divider reef in Bavaria is our feature in this issue’s Aquarium Portrait.

Not a dwarf but more compact than others in its genus, the Antennata Lionfish (Pterois antennata) can be startlingly beautiful with fins erect, fully displaying its piscine plumage. Learn how to find success keeping this fish in our Species Spotlight by Daniel Knop.

Find a directory of destination aquarium retailers with outstanding livestock, as well as your source for current and hard-to-find back issues of CORAL Magazine! You can view our sources list online anytime.

“Few people realize the impacts their purchases have on conservation and the lives of local people whose lives are lived in sync with the coral reef ecosystems that surround them,” writes Art Parola in his report from the Philippines entitled “Where the Aquarium Fishery is a Wild Reef Ecosystem’s Best Friend.”