Coral Id Please

[Taylorbudd]

I got 3 corals id like to find out the names of.

The big one there.

And the pillow looking one at the top right of the picture of the shelf

And then the one on the sand bed with little green spots

 

[Culprit]

#1 looks like a meat coral possibly?

#2 can't really tell from the pic, favia or favite mabye?

#3 chalice or plating monti probably

 

[stella1979]

Totally jealous of the meat coral.

Can you try for a closer pic of the 2nd one? Hate to disagree with my bff (best fishy friend, lol), but I have a 7 corals from the family faviidae, and none look quite like that. Your coral looks like it's pinstriped... perhaps a leptoseris? I think not though, as the striping looks straighter on yours, while my experience with leptos tells me that the striping is more irregular.

3rd - Hmmm, I'm agreeing with Culprit here, but would also like to throw cyphastrea out there. Do flower-like polyps extend from the spots?

 

[Taylorbudd]

A meat coral huh? He seemed to hate the light and waa kind of dying, i put him in the sand last night and he puffed up again. Hopefully his dead parts regrow or get covered up. Am i meant to be feeding it chunks of meat? Ive been just squirting it with reefroids.

The coral in the 2nd picture is almost like a pillow. The stripes are wrinkles.
Ill get a closer picture when i get home.
The 3rd picture coral, yes the little polyps protrude a bit and wave around. They look kind of yellow and the main mass is greenish.

 

[stella1979]

Coral #3 does indeed sound like cyphastrea then.

The meat coral... hmm, there's a few species that share this common name, but the meat name refers to how the coral looks. Regardless, while I love some Reef Roids, the coral will appreciate meatier offerings in it's diet. Like mysis shrimp, or those mixed meaty frozen foods that are marketed towards corals... and even small pieces of table shrimp, mussels, things like that.

 

[Taylorbudd]

Alright i have mysis shrimp ill give it a go.
It cost me 60 bucks so id prefer it didnt shrivel up lol.
Its "skin" is kind of peeling away from the rim towards the middle. Its on about 10% of the circumference

 

[stella1979]

Yeah... That's not good, but sounds pretty small. It should clear up with stable parameters, lowered light and flow... but not so low flow that sand or food will settle on it long enough to irritate the coral. Good luck with it! Yours is the first meat coral I've seen here for a long while and I'm definitely rooting for its return to health. Keep us posted please.

 

[Taylorbudd]

For sure i will.
My parameters are generally pretty stable so fingers crossed

Closer picture of coral 2 as requesred

 

[stella1979]

Closer picture of coral 2 as requesred

This is a tough one for me. It almost looks like a small plate coral, but the edges aren't right. Does it always look just like this, or does it get fleshier?

Just saw your post about the donut/meat coral on another thread, and also meant to try to pass on more info on this coral earlier. I'm just starting to learn about them after drooling over some in a ReefAPalooza Orlando 2018 video, lol. Anyhow, there are several species that might be referred to as a meat coral, and there's a good video about them below.

 

[Taylorbudd]

Yeah it puffs up alot like a marshmellow or pillow its super fleshy.
Its doesnt have a bowl shape tho like the big meat coral. Its just a green silky squishy pillow

The green one does actualy look like some of those meat corals in the video with the ring around the mouth but again its not concave bowl shaped like the big one. Its like a bowl turned upside down.
Maybe they are just different types of meat/donut/button coral?
Ive seen a few button coral that look similar.
You know i may just got to the **** store i got it from and ask them .. and buy more frags while im at it.

I need to start labelling these things

 

[stella1979]

I hear that! I definitely couldn't remember the designer names of corals if I didn't take note. For instance, I have a few favias and I can identify them as such, but I probably wouldn't remember that a particular color variant I have was called 'Necromancer' by the seller. If I ever get the nerve to frag it and sell it, I'd like to be able to say that it's a WWC Necromancer Favia. So, there's an app called Aquarium Note that I use to take pictures of and label new livestock, (it's also nice to look back at where a coral started, and store future pics of it so I can view growth.) There are several aquarium apps available, with some sold for a small fee that have more features. Aquarium Note is a good free one that allows me to keep track of all kinds of stuff going on with several tanks.

 

[Taylorbudd]

Thats cool ill have to check it out.

As for favias. I have 3 i think.
One is neon green with pale blue middle
One is maroon with neon green middle
One is pink with neon green middle but is looking really sad. The day i got it i was figuring out where to place it and accidentally dropped it way down in some live rock cave and it took alot of prodding and shaking to get it out and its looked wierd since. Ill post some pics if i have some. Im out of the house at the moment

For some reason my phone doesnt store pics i take thru apps. But the favias i have are the 2 that are front and center and the 3rd is top right next to the afro of zoas

Ok its the same 2 pics i already posted but its a closer view.
1st pic has the sad looking favia in front of the zoa frag.

2nd pic is the neon green outside pale blue inside favia. Its bottom left.

Haha and that leads me to another id question.

What kind of mushroom do you think that is.
Its kind of blue with red bumps

2nd pic below the cyphastrea

 

[Taylorbudd]

Home now. Favia pics close up. Lights off tho so colors are faded.
1st pic is of the neon green outside and pale blue center favia
2nd is the one that looks sad
3rd is my favourite and its the red maroon with neon green center. This one also seems to have grown the most. May have to move it to a rock i want it to attach to.

4th pic is a clearer one of the mushroom i asked about. Blueish base with red/orange/brown bumps

So by now you can probably tell i tent to impulse buy frags and forget their names.
Im working on that lol

 

[stella1979]

Addicted to frags? Join the CAA club, coral addicts anonymous, lol. Have you heard of World Wide Coral, or WWC? They're pretty spendy but do live sales several times a year, at which time the frags and the shipping are significantly cheaper... and that's when I lose my head. The sales have me glued to the computer for an entire weekend... literally. Protect your wallet!!!

The shroom looks like a rhodactis. It's difficult to photograph the colors as we see them, so I'm unsure, but if it's blue based with red, may as well call it a Superman.

Favias are pretty hardy in my experience, so I feel good about your sad guy getting happy again. Corals are just slow creatures, so it may be a little while before you see a difference. Also, the necromancer I mentioned above? It too is sort of maroon/plum colored with crazy bright green streaking. I wish I could share here how that coral looks under UV. It's totally wicked but impossible for me to photograph. Anyhow, point being, if your maroon guy is growing, I'd go ahead and move it to the rock before it starts growing down the sides of the plug. If you want to get corals off of frag plugs, it's best to do so before they grow and encrust the plug. My general rule is to let frags acclimate to my tank for just a week or two, then get them off the plugs and mount them somewhere. To each their own, but I do not like putting plugs on my scape. That said, favias are particularly easy. Because of their shape, they don't actually have to be scraped off the plug. Instead, I usually knock the post off the plug and leave the favia on the disc. The disc gets attached to the scape and as the coral grows, it completely hides it. This works with several other corals... acans and zoas to name a couple.

 

[Culprit]

Addicted to frags? Join the CAA club, coral addicts anonymous, lol. Have you heard of World Wide Coral, or WWC? They're pretty spendy but do live sales several times a year, at which time the frags and the shipping are significantly cheaper... and that's when I lose my head. The sales have me glued to the computer for an entire weekend... literally. Protect your wallet!!!

SPeaking of which... when is the next one? Isn't there a spring one coming up? I've got some spending money this time around!

 

[stella1979]

The first live sale I was a part of was for WWC's 10th anniversary and it was in June of last year. I can't be positive of course, but I did look back once and saw that they did 8th and 9th anniversary sales as well, so I'd imagine the 11th will be the next live sale. Less than 2 months away!!! Save your pennies guys! I hope to be there shopping for a few sticks. WWC frags are small, but the colors are insane and they have always been very healthy and quick to get happy again after the stress of shipping.

Speaking of addicted, I think I'll go ahead and share here how bad my addiction can get, lol. Here's my last WWC haul from when they were new.

 

[Taylorbudd]

They look really pretty.
I havmt ordered anything online yet. Tge reefers garage i got to is awesome.
I may check out wwc tho

Your frags look awesome too

 

[Taylorbudd]

The big meat coral ended up dying. I removed it from the tank in case its the reason my zoas arent opening up

 

[stella1979]

 

[Taylorbudd]

Zoas opened up when i took it out lol.. :/
Ah well. Ill stick to frags for now