WYSIWYG Rainbow Wilsoni Brain Coral (Australophyllia wilsoni) – Conditioned in Key West

You are buying the exact coral in the photo — a WYSIWYG Wilsoni brain coral (Australophyllia wilsoni) photographed under blue spectrum reef lighting. This colony runs long rather than round. Deep sapphire tissue fills the valleys, hard neon green striping runs the length of every ridge, and rust-red mouths and flecks are scattered through the blue where the ridges meet.

About Wilsoni (Australophyllia wilsoni)

Wilsoni — Australophyllia wilsoni — gets shelved next to Scolymia and Acan, but it is its own genus. Where a Scoly is a single solitary polyp, Wilsoni builds a multi-mouth colony with tall, sharply defined ridges and deep valleys between them. That maze structure is what collectors are actually paying for: it gives the coral two or three distinct color zones on one animal instead of a flat disc.

Wilsoni comes almost entirely from cooler southern Australian water, arrives in limited seasonal numbers, and grows slowly. Pieces are cut from wild colonies rather than farmed at volume, so the exact ridge count, pattern and color break shown in the photo is not something that can be reproduced on request.

Green-over-blue banding with red mouths is one of the harder Wilsoni patterns to find — most pieces grade smoothly from one color to the next rather than holding three separate colors in defined bands the way this one does.

Conditioned in our Key West systems, fully expanded, actively feeding, and showing full color under blue spectrum lighting at the time of photography.

Care Guide

• Lighting: Low to Medium — PAR 50–120. Color holds best under a strong blue spectrum at moderate intensity; high PAR bleaches the ridges.
• Flow: Low to Moderate — gentle indirect flow. Turn flow off while feeding.
• Placement: Bottom third of the tank, on sand or a flat stable rock ledge.
• Feeding: Mysis, Reef-Roids or small LPS pellets 2–3 times per week. Every mouth on the colony will take food.
• Aggression: Low to Moderate — allow 3–4″ from neighboring corals; short sweepers.
• Water Parameters: Temp 76–80°F | Salinity 1.025–1.026 | dKH 8–10 | Ca 400–450 | Mg 1250–1350 | Nitrate 5–10ppm

Shipping & Live Arrival Guarantee

Ships UPS Next Day Air every Tuesday and Wednesday from Key West, Florida. Packed in an insulated box with a heat or cold pack appropriate for current conditions. The specimen is carefully secured to prevent movement during transit.

Live arrival is guaranteed. If your coral arrives DOA, photograph the animal inside the unopened bag within 4 hours of delivery confirmation and contact us through eBay messages. We will work with you on a resolution.

What to expect when it arrives

Brain corals arrive with tissue pulled tight against the skeleton and the corallite structure showing clearly. Float the sealed bag 15 minutes, drip acclimate 30 to 45 minutes, and place the coral low in moderate light and moderate flow. Tissue inflation returns over one to three days.

Placement, and the aggression nobody plans for

These are among the most aggressive corals in a mixed reef and almost nobody accounts for it when placing them. Favia, Favites, Platygyra and their relatives send out sweeper tentacles at night that reach several inches past the daytime footprint and will chemically burn whatever they touch. Judge spacing by what the coral does after lights out, not by how it looks at noon. Four to six inches of clear space in every direction is a sensible minimum.

Feeding and growth

Brains take small meaty food readily and thicken visibly for it. Feed two or three times a week after lights out when the feeder tentacles are already extended and the coral will take food without a fight. Growth is steady rather than fast — expect the colony to encrust outward across its base over months.

Common trouble

A bare patch or dark stripe spreading across the dome is usually mechanical damage from a neighbor rather than disease. Check sweeper range before treating for anything. Skeleton showing between corallites with no obvious cause generally means light that is too strong for where the coral sits.

Compatibility

Excellent for a beginner on husbandry, difficult for a beginner on placement. They will win almost any exchange, so the risk is to the neighbors rather than to the brain itself.