The ORA Red Planet is one of my favorite SPS for a number of reasons. Number one, it is red and who doesn’t love a splash of red in their reef to color things up. Number two, it is a tabling acropora so it looks like it is a natural part of a reef and number three is its fast growth rate. The last one I had was about a foot and a half wide and it didn’t take too long to get there!
The ORA Red Planet was acquired by ORA in May of 2006 and quickly became a popular coral among SPS enthusiasts once it became available for sale. There was certainly an excitement when ORA released it and I was jazzed when I was able to track one down given its scarcity at the time. Check out these photos that show the coral’s growth progression in ORA’s greenhouse.
ORA Red Planet – A Beautiful and Fast Growing Coral
The ORA Red Planet is one of the few true red corals out there but it does have some green in its base when it is not under intense lighting (I had mine near the top of my tank under a 400W 20,000K Radium bulb so the green was not present). The coral is very hardy and can do well even lower down in the tank but it is happiest in the upper half of a tank when it has medium to high lighting as well as medium to strong flow.
Given its penchant to grow fast, I would recommend giving a newly placed frag a lot of room to grow so give it a wide berth relative to other frags and mature colonies. Under the right conditions you will be rewarded with one the most beautiful captive raised corals available in the hobby today.
Additional Resources
If you would like some help with a new tank build, including help designing a custom aquarium, or help re-configuring your current setup then you can visit this page for more information. And if you are looking to add some equipment, I do sell GHL, Pax Bellum, Reef Octopus Calcium and Kalk Reactors and Royal Exclusiv products, including Dreamboxes, which is the equipment I use and recommend. I also sell Reef Brite metal halide and LED fixtures as well as Maxspect & IceCap Gyres.
As for additional insights and information, please explore my many other reef tank and SPS related articles as well as my YouTube channel. For an even deeper dive into reef tank care you can check out my Reef Keeping Master Class. This online course is an immersive and one of a kind educational tool designed to help reef aquarium hobbyists build and maintain a beautiful SPS reef tank. The course is a series of video presentations with some supplemental video from my YouTube channel. There are also quizzes to help students retain and understand the information presented in the course.
Need some frags…..I can help with that as well 🙂 Please visit my SPS Frag store to see what is available.