Pink Krakatoa

Pink Krakatoa is a named zoanthid from the Zoanthids.com catalog shelf, and the master strain queue files its check in one line: the pink-faced member of the Krakatoa family. The family name carries the volcano, and this strain's name carries its colour. Read the name as a colour claim first: a pink face on a member of the Krakatoa group, in a family whose other named members run to speckles, rims and centres in orange, yellow and green.

The name travels in several forms, and a buyer meets all of them. The full form, Pink Krakatoa, is the catalog filing and the form a WAMAS keeper used in a 2015 addition list. World Wide Corals' Lou Schiavo listed the strain as WWC Pink Krakatoa Zoanthids among the top five favourite corals in his December 2022 Reef of the Month pico tank. Sale listings shorten it: TCK Corals sold a Pink Krak in its 2021 Black Friday in July sale, and a long-running Reef2Reef keeper sale offered Pink Krak at three polyps and, in its current refresh, Pink Kraks at one polyp plus. Inside those sale records the short forms sit in Krakatoa-family company, and this entry carries the full form as its name and the short and prefixed forms in its alias field.

The colour record is the thinnest part of this strain's record, and the entry keeps that visible because a buyer has to match a frag against it. The master queue files a pink-faced morph, and no source read for this entry adds a fuller disc, skirt and mouth description for Pink Krakatoa itself. The family's neighbouring descriptions are not this strain's description: the plain Krakatoa listing at Saltwaterfish reads as a yellow outer rim with a pink/orange centre, Grandmaster Krakatoa as a bright yellow rim with a pink centre, and Speckled Krak by its heavy pale speckling over a dark disc. A frag sold as Pink Krakatoa should read pink across the face first; a frag whose pink sits only at the centre of a yellow-rimmed polyp is closer to the family's plain and Grandmaster descriptions, and the seller's name for it deserves a second look. Spectrum shifts zoanthid colour hard, so judge under the light the seller photographed in and ask for a white-light view where the sale allows it.

The Krakatoa family context matters because the family is a shelf, not a single coral. Lou Schiavo's top-five list is the clearest single record of that: GMK — Grand Master Krak Zoanthids — and WWC Pink Krakatoa Zoanthids appear as two separate entries in the same five-coral list, in the same small tank. Grandmaster Krakatoa is already in this database as its own entry and has held top-tier collector prices for years. Speckled Krak is a separate staged entry. Plain Krakatoa, Krak Morph and Krak God listings sit further out on the same shelf. Keeping the names apart is most of the buying skill this family asks for.

Care follows the family shape, and this strain carries no warning that changes it in the records read. The family record is forgiving: Saltwaterfish rates its Krak listings Easy, Top Shelf Aquatics calls zoanthids generally hardy and beginner-friendly, and Whitlyn Aquatics calls zoas and palys hardy under stable water conditions. No melt report, difficulty list entry, or keeper loss naming Pink Krakatoa was found in the sources read for this entry. That is a thinner record than a proven one — the strain simply has a smaller written footprint than its famous sibling — so the practical plan stays conservative anyway: buy an established, healed frag, place it in a stable tank, and watch the first month, as with any named zoanthid. The care tile carries Easy on the family record, with this paragraph as its qualification.

Water chemistry follows the standard reef shape, and the one detailed keeper system that held this strain sits inside it. Reef To Go's standard parameters suit the strain: temperature 77–79 °F, salinity near 35 ppt (about 1.024–1.026), alkalinity 8–10 dKH held steady, calcium 400–450 ppm, with low but detectable nitrate and phosphate. Lou Schiavo's pico ran at 76 °F, specific gravity 1.025, alkalinity 8.3 dKH, calcium 420 ppm, magnesium 1,400 ppm, nitrate 10 ppm and phosphate 0.01 ppm, held by weekly one-to-two gallon water changes with no dosing — a worked example of the standard shape in a 4.8-gallon system. Top Shelf Aquatics gives calcium 380–450 ppm, alkalinity 8–9.5 dKH, magnesium 1,250–1,350 ppm, nitrate 5–15 ppm and phosphate under 0.10 ppm for the family, at 75–80 °F and salinity 1.024–1.026. Zoanthids carry no calcium skeleton, so the colony itself makes no dosing demand; stability does the work.

Light sits in the family band. Top Shelf Aquatics works zoanthids at 75–150 PAR, moderate light typically sufficient, with a slow transition required before any move higher; Whitlyn Aquatics gives 50–150 PAR as the moderate band, with colouration varying by spectrum and intensity. Lou Schiavo's colony lived under an Aqua Illumination Prime 16 HD on an eight-to-nine hour photoperiod with one-hour ramps in his pico — no PAR figure was published for that tank, so it stands as a presence record, not a light prescription. The working plan is to start low in the band on lower rockwork, climb in small steps over 2–3 weeks, and let the colony's shape and colour arbitrate.

Flow follows the same pattern on every family source. The family text calls for moderate, indirect flow that sweeps debris off the mat and leaves the colony open and extended, with steady but gentle placement flow named as the condition for a vibrant appearance. A colony that stays closed earns a flow check and a light check together, in that order, before any chemistry change.

Feeding is a supplement with a real but secondary effect. Top Shelf Aquatics feeds fine-particle phytoplankton blends plus products like Reef Roids and Benepets a few times a week, broadcast or target-fed with flow paused for ten to fifteen minutes. Whitlyn Aquatics puts supplemental feeding at 1–2 times weekly and notes the feeding response is weak. The keeper record for this strain is specific on the point: Lou Schiavo broadcast-fed Polyp Lab Reef Roids three times a week in the pico that held his WWC Pink Krakatoa, alongside the weekly water changes — a feeding routine at the frequent end of the family range, in a very small system, recorded as that keeper's practice rather than a strain requirement.

Placement should plan for a family mat on its own island rock. The family record spreads rapidly about the tank (Saltwaterfish), buds into large mats that crowd neighbours (Whitlyn Aquatics), and can overrun neighbouring corals without trimming and strategic placement (Top Shelf Aquatics). Begin on a low island, keep the colony's spread room in the plan from the first day, and walk it upward only as its colour and shape ask for more light.

Pests and health checks carry the family list. Top Shelf Aquatics names nudibranchs and zoa-eating spiders as the family's pest risks, found on inspection, with dips on arrival as the standing defence, and closed polyps from excessive flow or debris buildup as the everyday stress sign. Handling follows the family safety rule at full strength: zoanthids can carry palytoxin, so gloves and eye protection go on for every handling session, colonies stay away from high heat, and hands and tools are washed thoroughly afterwards.

Price anchors place this strain in the working collector band, well below its Grandmaster sibling. TCK Corals' July 2021 Black Friday in July sale listed Pink Krak #2 at $29.75. A long-running Reef2Reef keeper sale — frags healed two-plus weeks, grown under a T5 and ReefBrite hybrid in the seller's own system — listed Pink Krak at $40 for three polyps in its earlier refresh and Pink Kraks at $30 for one polyp plus in its current refresh, where one of the two Pink Kraks frags is marked sold. Against those figures, the family's plain Krakatoa listing at Saltwaterfish sits at $179.99 and Grandmaster material higher still in keeper memory. The spread is the family's shape in miniature: the famous name carries the premium, and the pink-faced sibling trades as an affordable way into the same shelf.

Field notes — what keepers report

- The strongest keeper record comes from Reef2Reef's Reef of the Month for December 2022, Lou Schiavo's 4.8-gallon Eshopps DeskMate pico. Schiavo — a World Wide Corals keeper, sixteen years in the hobby — listed his top five favourite corals in the tank as the WWC OG Bubble Gum Monster Chalice, the WWC Jawbreaker Mushroom, GMK Grand Master Krak Zoanthids, WWC Pink Krakatoa Zoanthids, and the Jason Fox My Miami Chalice. A named strain holding a top-five place in a tank that small is a deliberate choice, and the same list carrying GMK and Pink Krakatoa as separate corals is the record this entry relies on for keeping the two names apart. His system ran at 76 °F, pH 8.3, specific gravity 1.025, nitrate 10 ppm, phosphate 0.01 ppm, calcium 420 ppm, alkalinity 8.3 dKH and magnesium 1,400 ppm, under an AI Prime 16 HD at eight to nine hours with one-hour ramps, with weekly one-to-two gallon water changes, no dosing, and Reef Roids broadcast three times a week. His stated advice was patience and consistency. No loss, melt or difficulty report for the strain appears in the feature.

- The earliest keeper sighting read for this entry is a September 2015 WAMAS forum addition list by keeper John Ford, who added nine zoanthid frags to a new system in one round — Pink Krakatoa, Deja Vu, Tyree Orange Rainbow, Mean Green, Candy Apple Orange, Armageddon II, Mandarin Orange, Frozen Frog Eyes, and Sunny Ds — under a T5 and XHO LED combination he praised in the same thread. The sighting dates the strain's keeper circulation to at least 2015 and places it in classic-era company. It is an addition list only: no growth, colour or survival follow-up for the Pink Krakatoa frag was read.

- A stock-video sighting adds a small independent presence record: PIXTA's creator catalog for szefei lists a "Close up pink krakatoa zoa opening up 4k time lapse" clip among that creator's reef timelapses. A stock agency carrying the strain's name as a searchable clip title shows the name circulating beyond sale listings. The clip is commercial stock footage — it is not a licensed still photo for this entry, and its title carries no colour or care evidence, so the record is used at presence strength only.

- The difficulty record is an absence, and the entry records it as one. Searches for this strain by its full and shortened names found no melt thread, no hard-to-keep list entry, and no keeper loss report naming Pink Krakatoa — in contrast to its sibling Speckled Krak, which a 2021 Reef2Reef melting thread names directly and a 200-strain collector singled out as particularly temperamental. Both sides stay visible: the family baseline is Easy on every care source read, and the strain's own written record is small, so the absence of a warning is weaker evidence than a warning's presence would be. The CARE tile follows the family record at Easy, with this note as the standing qualification.

- The growth record is likewise thin, and the tile says so. No doubling time, polyp-count-over-months report, or colony growth account naming this strain was found. What exists is a trade pattern: TCK sold the strain in a national sale in 2021, and one keeper seller has offered healed Pink Krak frags across a long-running sale thread refreshed from 2024 into 2026, describing everything as grown in his own system with mother colonies back growing out after cutting. That pattern is consistent with a strain keepers can propagate, at sighting strength. Combined with the absence of a strain measurement, it leaves the GROWTH tile at the Moderate default, against the family rapid-spread record (Saltwaterfish, Whitlyn Aquatics, Top Shelf Aquatics), which stays recorded here at full strength.

- The price record splits by channel, and both ends stay visible. Vendor sale: $29.75 for Pink Krak #2 at TCK Corals' July 2021 Black Friday in July event, a discounted sale price rather than a list price. Keeper sale: $40 for a three-polyp frag in the Reef2Reef thread's earlier refresh, and $30 for one polyp plus in its current refresh, with one of two frags marked sold at that figure — the per-polyp reading rose as the frag size fell, so the two keeper figures describe different frags, not a price trend. No current national retail listing under the Pink Krakatoa name was found in the sources searched; the dossier records that absence rather than quoting a sibling's price as this strain's.