Big and ugly

littlefishy · Mar 10, 2020

I posted this pic morning in my tank journal, but it is new and hardly gets read.
Maybe it will be of interest to zoa and paly people.
This came on a rock of indo maricultured pink zoa from L.A. last week. It was flacid and sticking out the side from under the colony polyps. It's probably an inch and a quarter long and a half inch thick. An RFA moved next to the rock and was touching it for most of the week. When I fed reefroids it stood straight up, but didn't open. Now that the rock is fragged, out of curiosity I've stuck this in the open where I can easily move or remove it when/if it opens and shows what it is.
It peeked open this a.m. and I'm thinking it may be a huge paly. Any guesses? I was hoping for something else, but I'm fairly new to identifying corals. Will update with pics as it opens.

Strawberry · Mar 10, 2020

Possibly a walking dendro?

Strawberry · Mar 10, 2020

Heteropsammia cochlea is the binomial nomenclature

sfin52 · Mar 10, 2020

Possible a grande paly.

Bfragale · Mar 10, 2020

Looks like a paly to me. But i could be wrong.

littlefishy · Mar 10, 2020

So reef roids were fed this evening, and this thing reared it's ugly head. Getting closer to showing itself. Maybe by the end of the week it will be out. I'm sure having rfa tentacles on it last week wasn't healthy for it.

Strawberry said:
Possibly a walking dendro?

I had to look that up strawberry. I'd love it if it were a dendro instead of a paly.

sfin52 · Mar 10, 2020

growoldplease said:
So reef roids were fed this evening, and this thing reared it's ugly head. Getting closer to showing itself. Maybe by the end of the week it will be out. I'm sure having rfa tentacles on it last week wasn't healthy for it.

I had to look that up strawberry. I'd love it if it were a dendro instead of a paly.

It’s looking like a paly. I’m still leaning toward a grande

littlefishy · Mar 15, 2020

sfin52 said:
It’s looking like a paly. I’m still leaning toward a grande

Is this enough of an opening for a definite id? The camera flash washes out the green tint in the center. Weirdly, it turns purple coraline green. There is no green algae in my tank.
...and the winner is a paly? I'm going to see if I can take it in to an lfs as I don't want giant paly in a 10g. The shape of the rocks are what I'd like to see after small zoa grow over them.