Blue Hornet

Blue Hornet belongs to the original hornet trio, alongside the Purple Hornet and the Red Hornet. The hornet pattern began with the Purple Hornet, named for a skirt that alternates purple and yellow in a nod to the banding of the insect. The trait that carried across the whole series is a clean ring around the mouth, and the Blue Hornet is the member of the trio where blue does the work that deep purple does in its famous sibling.

Descriptions of exactly where the blue sits vary by source, and a buyer should know that before judging a frag. One farm describes the name as coming from an almost baby-blue ring inside the mouth. A keeper care database describes the polyp as predominantly violet with yellow tentacles and a blue mouth. A farming source that sells the Purple Hornet describes the Blue Hornet simply as the blue counterpart, against the Purple Hornet's much deeper purple. The accounts agree on the underlying pattern even where they place the emphasis differently: a blue-to-violet disc, a clean contrasting ring at the mouth, an alternating skirt, and the plump, full polyp shape the original trio share.

That plump shape is a useful identification check. The specialist hornet ID source contrasts the original trio with the later Rainbow Hornet: the originals grow full and rounded, while Rainbow grows thinner and flatter, carries a metallic orange skirt, grows a little faster in a more compact mat, and is suspected to be a different species altogether. A thin, flat polyp with an orange skirt sold as a Blue Hornet deserves a second look. So does a frag labelled Blue Eye Hornet — at least one major vendor lists that name as a separate product, and the two names should not be treated as the same morph without a side-by-side comparison.

Care follows the hornet pattern of starting lower than a newcomer might expect. The vendor page read for this morph gives an ideal range of 75 to 150 PAR and advises placing a new colony in lower light first, then raising exposure gradually over two to three weeks. A keeper growth report points the same direction from experience: this morph was the one zoa in the tank that lagged while the rest multiplied, it disliked stronger light, and it did better after being moved to the bottom. Start low, move slowly, and judge the colony by polyp extension and ring clarity.

Flow should be moderate and indirect: enough movement to keep detritus from settling on the mat, with no pump aimed straight at the colony. Direct flow folds or closes the polyps, and a mat that stays dirty invites decline. The coral is photosynthetic and needs no feeding. Vendor guidance read for this morph notes that fine-particle plankton blends and amino-style foods, offered a few times a week with flow paused, can support colour and growth for keepers who choose to feed — an optional extra, never a requirement.

Reef To Go's standard reef parameters suit it: 77–79°F, salinity near 35 ppt (about 1.024–1.026), alkalinity 8–10 dKH, calcium 400–450 ppm, with low but detectable nitrate and phosphate. Vendor ranges read for this morph run a little wider — nitrate 5–15 ppm and phosphate under 0.10 ppm on one page — and zoanthids have no calcium skeleton, so there is no dosing demand from this coral itself. Stability is the requirement, because small swings are what stress a collector morph first.

Placement needs one extra thought beyond light and flow: protect it from its neighbours while it establishes. Keeper reports describe a slow, stubborn start for this morph, and faster zoanthid mats will shade and overrun a small frag in a crowded garden. Give it its own rock area or a defined island with room to spread at its own pace, and keep sweeper-tentacled corals out of reach. Beside a settled Purple Hornet colony, the blue-versus-deep-purple contrast is the pairing collectors built the hornet shelf around.

Safety applies to this coral as it does to zoanthids generally. Some zoanthids and their Palythoa relatives can carry palytoxin, and there is no visual way to tell which colonies do. Handle and frag with gloves and eye protection, keep the coral away from open cuts, handle it submerged where practical, wash thoroughly afterwards, and never boil, steam, or pressure-wash rock that carries it, because heat can aerosolize the toxin. Handled with that respect, a settled colony is a durable, long-lived aquarium coral.

Field notes — what keepers report

- The stubborn-growth report is the most specific keeper account found for this morph. In a Reef2Reef growth thread, a keeper with a 20-gallon tank reported that nearly every zoa frag started at one to four polyps had passed seven polyps within two months — with the exception of a particularly stubborn Blue Hornet. The same report credits weekly target feeding with pumps off, medium flow, and moving the morph to the bottom of the tank, away from stronger light, for the improvement it did show. One tank and one frag, so treat it as a pattern to watch for rather than a growth rate.

- On difficulty, reports split by source type, and both sides belong in the record. The Reef Farm lists this morph at its Easy care level, with moderate light and moderate flow and no special feeding, sold as a three-polyp frag. Hobby roundups take the other side: one widely read explainer calls the Hornet group moderately difficult, collector-priced, and wishlist material because of the rare colour morphs, while the specialist ID source notes the later Rainbow Hornet is much easier to care for than the original trio — which places the Blue Hornet on the fussier side of its own family by comparison. The honest summary is a hardy family with a comparatively demanding member.

- Placement advice also splits, and the entry above follows the more cautious side. The TankFacts page for Blue Hornets advises a mature tank, strong lighting, and placement in the middle or top of the tank where the coral receives the most light. The vendor acclimation guidance and the keeper growth report both point lower — start in reduced light, acclimate over weeks, and expect a better response near the bottom. A new frag should follow the lower-light route first and only move up if it stretches and stays fully open.

- Colour naming is genuinely unsettled in the sources read. The baby-blue mouth ring (The Reef Farm), the violet disc with yellow tentacles and blue mouth (TankFacts), and the plain blue-versus-deep-purple contrast with Purple Hornet (ReefStable's Purple Hornet page) describe the same neighbourhood of colour with different emphasis. Under blue-heavy light the disc reads bluer; under whiter light the violet side shows. Buyers comparing a frag to a vendor photo should check the ring, the alternating skirt, and the plump polyp shape before they check the exact shade.

- Classic-name status is consistent across hobby writing. A Fragbox guide lists Blue Hornets among the classic, undisputed zoa names alongside Sunny D, Utter Chaos, and Rastas, and a Reef Builders survey of trade names uses "Blue Hornets" as an example of a descriptive name that makes sense once the coral is seen. That longevity cuts both ways: the name is trusted, and it is also borrowed for lookalike frags, which is why the shape checks above matter.

- Pest and decline notes in the sources read are family-level rather than Blue Hornet-specific: filamentous algae smothering polyps, box (sundial) snails that feed on zoanthids, zoa-eating nudibranchs and spiders found on night inspection, and detritus left sitting on the mat. No Blue Hornet-specific melt rate or cure was found in the sources read, so this entry claims none. The working prevention list is the unglamorous one: dip and inspect new frags, baste detritus off the mat, and keep parameters stable before reaching for treatments.

- Price in listings actually read spreads widely, which itself is useful information for a buyer. A current Top Shelf Aquatics listing prices this morph at $54.99. AquaSD sale threads read for this dossier priced Blue Hornet Zoanthids at $44.99, $30.00, $27.50, $20.00, and $15.00 across different sales. A Canadian hobbyist listing priced Blue Hornet at $25 for five heads, a Reef2Reef private listing offered Blue Hornets at $25, and a keeper's tank journal records paying $24 for a plug at a club auction — more than that keeper normally spends, by their own account. No verified historic peak price was found in the sources read, so none is claimed here.