帕劳astreais one of the least known SPS coral that is not just rare in the aquarium hobby, but pretty much all but unknown.P. ramosais in the family Astrocoeniidae which includes some familiar aquarium corals includingPocillopora和Seriatopora它表面上类似于Stylocoeniella和Stylophora.
Alas, whereas those two genera are blessed with some wild colors and awesome polyps,帕劳astreahas a very conservative appearance, almost always appearing tan, brown or grey with light colored polyps. In shallow water帕劳astreahas thin branches with rounded tips like aStylophorawhile in deeper or turbid water with reduced lighting the branches become much thicker and greatly resembleporites。
High light (left) and low light (right) growth forms of Palauastrea
While diving on natural reefs,帕劳astrea有点罕见，但在广泛的赤道礁环境中并不是不可能找到的。我们会承认，无论我们多么喜欢这种珊瑚，在其自然栖息地中什么都不会迫使珊瑚收集器收获一些并为水族馆的爱好提供该物种。
2015年首次收集的同一殖民地
This is why almost five years ago wecollected a colony of帕劳astreafor ourselves and even then it really didn’t look like anything more than a curiosity – just a light brown, thick branching SPS coral with weird polyps. Although we collected this colony in a turbid reef environment that was more of a chalice coral reef, we’ve acclimated our first piece to a very high light environment in which it has developed into at least a somewhat more interesting coral.
没有任何其他珊瑚尺度，乍看之下五岁帕劳astreacolony looks more or less like any other Stylophora but the branching structure is actually much thinner andminiaturecompared to its more popular cousin. However when you look closer at this coral, something seems to be a little bit different, especially in the polyps.
There’s no metallic tentacle-tips or hooded corallites that you would expect to see inStylophora，在息肉的触角中，在某些区域往往会伸长，而微扫者让人联想到Stylocoeniella. Unfortunately, we are the only reefer we know that has ever kept this species in a reef aquarium making帕劳astreaa legitimately rare genus in the hobby, absent of hype or price inflation, it’s just really that rare.
如果有一件事使这种珊瑚与众不同，除了没有其他人的坦克中，它可以在非常明亮且非常昏暗的光线下生长，这是其他分支SP不能声称的。此外，骨骼可能看起来很细腻，但实际上非常困难，与野生种植的大理石密度不同Stylocoeniella群落。
Try to just snap a branch of帕劳astrea殖民地，您将需要太多的力量，以至于如果它抢购，该分支可能会从努力中飞来飞去。现在我们最初的殖民地帕劳astrea我们已经达到了一定的批量，我们将其碎裂，繁殖并与我们的朋友分享，因为我们很想看看这种珊瑚在其他一些礁石水族馆环境中的外观。
