Acropora microclados. Expert to keep, Typical PAR 200–350, high flow.
Also sold as SSC.
Rarity tier: ultra, reviewed 2026-08.
A. microclados with a lime to neon green body carrying pink to red polyps. That way round is the identification, and the trade is strict about it: a green base with bright red polyps is what counts as the true Strawberry Shortcake.
Pink is light-driven: too little and it goes tan, too much and it bleaches to white. A vendor photo under 400 PAR is not what your tank will show. A pink-bodied microclados with green polyps is a different coral, whatever it is labelled.
High light and strong random flow, up in the rockwork. Strawberry Shortcake is expert to keep at a typical PAR of 200–350 in high flow. A typical starting range for this type of coral rather than a measured requirement for this morph. Spectrum, how it was acclimated and the system it grew in all move it.
No verified sales yet. A range publishes once 3 dated, checkable records from 3 different sources exist, priced per frag and reported as a median, with what shops ask kept separate from what buyers paid. One frag is a single cut on a plug, whatever its exact size. Colonies, mini colonies and mother stock are excluded rather than averaged in. Nothing on this page is for sale. Shops are typically asking $61 to $100 per frag, median $80, across 14 shops surveyed on 2026-09-07; the full sweep ran $50 to $260. Asking prices are what sellers want, not what buyers paid. On 2026-09-07 it was in stock at 14 surveyed shops: aqua-vault.com, ghicorals.com, ijamcoral.com, mattscorals.com, pacificeastaquaculture.com, palmettoreef.com, and 8 more.