On further research, the skeleton contains iron salts which gives it its blue pigmentation.
At least in Fiji, this is considered a rare coral.
@Dick Perrin
, you know where the ones you guys have in stock originated?
The other octocoral that people think is a stony is pipe organ, tubapora musica. Another "soft" that somehow makes a skeleton. I really don't recall the origin of ours. We've had it "forever"