Pearlberry Acropora

Pearlberry Acropora is offered under the retail name shown in the product title.

This is an Acropora coral. Color and lineage names in the title are aquarium-trade descriptors, not a verified species identification unless a scientific name is explicitly included. Color, growth form, and polyp extension depend on stable conditions as much as lighting intensity.

Care Guide

• Lighting: High — PAR 250–400 Acclimate gradually; do not place a newly received frag directly into peak intensity.
• Flow: High, randomized. Use broad, randomized movement rather than a narrow jet directed at living tissue.
• Placement: Upper rockwork with open room for branching. Leave open room for future branching or table growth and keep neighboring corals from touching it.
• Feeding: Direct feeding is optional. Stable nutrients and appropriately sized suspended foods are more useful than heavy target feeding.

Acropora responds poorly to rapid swings. Keep alkalinity, salinity, temperature, calcium, and magnesium stable; change one variable at a time and watch the living growth edge for feedback.

Shipping: Ships UPS Next Day Air from Key West. Current eligibility and delivery timing are shown at checkout.

What to expect when it arrives

Acropora ships with polyps fully retracted and the color noticeably duller than the listing photograph. Both are normal. Float the sealed bag 15 minutes, drip acclimate 45 minutes, and dip the frag before it goes anywhere near your display. Red bugs and acro-eating flatworms arrive on frags from every source, including ours, and a dip plus a look at the plug underside is the cheapest insurance in the hobby.

Light acclimation, which is where the money is lost

Do not place a new Acropora frag under full intensity. Start it low on the rockwork for the first week and raise it in stages across three to four weeks. Bleaching from a sudden light jump does not appear for several days, and by the time you see pale tissue the damage is finished. Nearly every dead acro frag in this hobby was killed in its first two weeks by light, not by water chemistry.

Polyp extension usually returns within three to seven days. A frag that has not extended in ten days is worth investigating; one that has not extended in three is simply settling.

Stability over numbers

Alkalinity drift kills more Acropora than any single parameter being wrong. A tank holding 8.5 dKH steady grows acro better than one swinging between 7.5 and 9.5 chasing a target. If you dose, dose continuously rather than in one daily slug. Sudden alkalinity movement burns tips within hours.

Growth and fragging

Expect visible encrusting onto the plug within four to six weeks — that is the first reliable sign the frag has accepted its spot. Branch extension follows. Give a frag two to three months before judging color, because Acropora colors up to its light over weeks and the first two weeks tells you nothing useful.

Frag with bone cutters, cut in the morning, and glue the cutting rather than letting it tumble.

Compatibility

Acropora has no meaningful defense against LPS sweepers. Keep it well clear of Euphyllia, chalices and brains. It is also the first coral to suffer when anything else in the tank goes wrong, which makes it an excellent early warning system and an expensive one.