Branching mystic sunset montipora

Devcharest158 · Mar 19, 2020

Has anyone ever seen a branching coral with the same coloration as the mystic sunset montipora?

I was at one of my LFS today and I saw it in one of their display tanks. The guy said it was there when he started and didn’t know what it was but the colors and polyps look indentical to the MS montipora, with half blue polyps too, but no where online mentions the MS branching.

I first thought maybe grew over a dead acro skeleton but the growth tips of the branches where growing like normal and there was only a small encrusted base. The “growth” habit was like a table of branches growing horizontally from the rock work. I forgot to take a photo of it but can grab one tomorrow.

does anyone know if you let an encrusting montipora grow on an acropora skeleton how it would grow once it covered the dead tips? Would it grow from a point like a normal branching coral or not grow anymore with no place to go?

I was able to get a 1.5” frag to see how it grows. worst case I got a standard MS and hopefully I got something cool.

Brad Waddell Wrath's Reef · Mar 19, 2020

Devcharest158 said:
Has anyone ever seen a branching coral with the same coloration as the mystic sunset montipora?

I was at one of my LFS today and I saw it in one of their display tanks. The guy said it was there when he started and didn’t know what it was but the colors and polyps look indentical to the MS montipora, with half blue polyps too, but no where online mentions the MS branching.

I first thought maybe grew over a dead acro skeleton but the growth tips of the branches where growing like normal and there was only a small encrusted base. The “growth” habit was like a table of branches growing horizontally from the rock work. I forgot to take a photo of it but can grab one tomorrow.

does anyone know if you let an encrusting montipora grow on an acropora skeleton how it would grow once it covered the dead tips? Would it grow from a point like a normal branching coral or not grow anymore with no place to go?

I was able to get a 1.5” frag to see how it grows. worst case I got a standard MS and hopefully I got something cool.

Montipora spongodes is the one I can think of but does not look anything like a MS. I would think that a MS encrusting a acropora skeleton would look nice.

gilman · Mar 19, 2020

I have a mystic sunset that is killing a digitata and encrusting over it so it looks like its branching .

Brad Waddell Wrath's Reef · Mar 19, 2020

gilman said:
I have a mystic sunset that is killing a digitata and encrusting over it so it looks like its branching .

Not sure if I like that or not. I'm sure it looks cool but its killing your digitata.

Triggreef · Mar 19, 2020

I always thought it would be cool to use a big purple stylo colony and let something encrusting grow over it. I tried with some pavonas/leptos but it began plating and didn't look right. And it was taking too long and I couldn't look at it anymore and scratched the project.

I may just try again with some stylocoenelia of some sort in the future. But it can't take place in my main tank lol. Gotta put it somewhere I can ignore it for a year.

oh yeah the original question... Nope never saw that. Something sounds fishy with it. I can tell you the regular mystic plates out sometimes (Slightly).

KrisReef · Mar 19, 2020

Devcharest158 said:
I was able to get a 1.5” frag to see how it grows. worst case I got a standard MS and hopefully I got something cool.

Nice to score new stuff from the LFS!
Welcome to Reef2Reef.

Devcharest158 · Mar 19, 2020

Thanks!

I always thought it would be cool to try growing encrusting corals on dead acro skeletons too. A stylocoenelia would look awesome that way.

Something is definitely fishy and I'm leaning towards it just being a mystic sunset growing on a branching dead skeleton. But the growth tips really looked like they were actively growing in the display just as a M.digitata does and I wouldn't imagine that if a Montipora encrusted a dead branch it would continue to grow as a branch when it reached the end. I figured it would just stop when it ran out of room and grow out where it had room elsewhere, or even plate a bit.

I'm really hoping the frag continues to branch cause it looked really nice in the display they had.

2Wheelsonly · Mar 19, 2020

Wrath said:
Not sure if I like that or not. I'm sure it looks cool but its killing your digitata.

Sometimes even corals can be jerks.

Devcharest158 said:
Thanks!

I always thought it would be cool to try growing encrusting corals on dead acro skeletons too. A stylocoenelia would look awesome that way.

Something is definitely fishy and I'm leaning towards it just being a mystic sunset growing on a branching dead skeleton. But the growth tips really looked like they were actively growing in the display just as a M.digitata does and I wouldn't imagine that if a Montipora encrusted a dead branch it would continue to grow as a branch when it reached the end. I figured it would just stop when it ran out of room and grow out where it had room elsewhere, or even plate a bit.

I'm really hoping the frag continues to branch cause it looked really nice in the display they had.

My rainbow monti did this over an ugly wild colony I got for next to nothing at an LFS. I was hoping to color it up and it just eventually died; my rainbow monti started growing up the base so I left it alone. Within the year it was fully color and had an amazing look but it wont last. Dead coral skeletons in my experience are breeding grounds for bad stuff (if they are not sitting in your calcium reactor of course). I had vermetid snails burrowing through the dead coral until they eventually burst through the rainbow monti and made a tower of constant spider webs. I had to take it all out eventually as it started to become an eyesore and effect acros growing out in the area. The coral skeleton becomes extremely brittle too as it's no longer "alive".

There are quite a few folks that make ceramic structures for encrusting montipora; there used to be a website that sold them long ago (can't remember the URL or name). It was like having a giant frag plug in the tank...

gilman · Mar 19, 2020

Wrath said:
Not sure if I like that or not. I'm sure it looks cool but its killing your digitata.

I have so much digitata I could careless

Devcharest158 · Apr 15, 2020

I went back to the LFS the other day and snapped a few photos. It really looks like it's naturally growing this way and the coloration looks identical to the mysitc sunset montipora, down the the half blue polyps.

I'll update once my little frag starts to color and grow.

minus9 · Apr 15, 2020

Those polyps are screaming seriatopora caliendrum to me.

klimfish · Apr 15, 2020

Yeah that really looks like a seriatopora to me...

GlassMunky · Apr 15, 2020

minus9 said:
Those polyps are screaming seriatopora caliendrum to me.

klimfish said:
Yeah that really looks like a seriatopora to me...

def not. look at the tips, thats a classic monti shape.
Reminds me of the old ORA German Blue Polyp Digi

ORA German Blue Polyp Digitata | Montipora digitata | ORA | Oceans, Reefs & Aquariums

The ORA German Blue Polyp Digitata has beautiful bright blue polyps.

www.orafarm.com

JoshO · Apr 15, 2020

Whatever it is, the colours are awesome

X-37B · Apr 15, 2020

Here is mine. Its on the bottom and has started branching. Not alot but will see how it grows out.

minus9 · Apr 15, 2020

GlassMunky said:
def not. look at the tips, thats a classic monti shape.
Reminds me of the old ORA German Blue Polyp Digi

ORA German Blue Polyp Digitata | Montipora digitata | ORA | Oceans, Reefs & Aquariums

The ORA German Blue Polyp Digitata has beautiful bright blue polyps.

www.orafarm.com

True, the tips look just like digitata to me, but the sparse polyps threw me off.

Graffiti Spot · Apr 15, 2020

GlassMunky said:
def not. look at the tips, thats a classic monti shape.
Reminds me of the old ORA German Blue Polyp Digi

ORA German Blue Polyp Digitata | Montipora digitata | ORA | Oceans, Reefs & Aquariums

The ORA German Blue Polyp Digitata has beautiful bright blue polyps.

www.orafarm.com

Yea the tips give it away. Awesome digi! I haven’t seen one exactly like that yet but I bet it’s just getting great light and growing fast. The fact that the branches are mostly sideways is really showing off the base color which is what makes it unique to me. I would grab some and see how it looks in your tank after a while.

Oh an the German blue is an awesome digi. I had a buddy that had a 300 gallon tank with a massive tang that would break colonies and it was spread around everywhere growing about at the pace the small blue star polyps were!

Devcharest158 · Apr 17, 2020

GlassMunky: I was actually starting to think it might be a German blue Digi! I think this is what it is. I've seen a few photos of them where they've had the half colored polyps and the base/branches look red.

The MC is growing very high up, only maybe 6-8" below the surface and getting decent light. Maybe it's just the light/nutrient combo of that tank resulted in its colors look identical to a music sunset.

Either way, I wouldn't be disappointed if it turned out to look like a standard German blue.

jda · Apr 17, 2020

There are many different kinds of blue polyp digi. This is likely one of them.

Some will get darker bodies under different light. This is the ORA variety. If you can keep the polys in a bit, then the body is pretty red (for SPS). Under lower light, the body is even deeper red. Tips are white.