Hi everyone, whenever an acan morphs I always think of two stories that were told to me some years ago. First is from Joe Catalano the owner of Manhattan Aquariums service, he dove in Australia with a collector and found an enormous acan colony on the top of a reef overhang, he floated in for a closer look and observed that the coral actually grew down and under this overhang. The growth on the top was primarily red but the same acan colony underneath(shaded) was a stunning rainbow.
Second is from a conversation I had with a collector on FB. This one goes like this, he observed an enormous sarcophyton i.e. 2'+ and an acan was growing near its base. This acan was again primarily a red color but those areas that were shaded were once again a stunning rainbow.
Moral of the story is that lighting is a huge component in the husbandry of acans and its our never ending desire to keep everything we love (acans, chalices, palys, sps, ect....) all in the same tank that occasionally create disappointment. Buying an established morph such as YP10, Neptunes Crown, Highlighters, and many others is an excellent practice but in almost all cases if you give them too much light be ready for a change.
I am not making excuses, expensive acans go red on us as well which is why these days we try not to sell acans unless we have had them for a few months.
Everytime we buy an expensive super ultra acan we run the same risk as anyone else.
