Caribbean Rose coral?

[John3]

This coral hitchhiker started out as a glowing spec on my live rock about 2 months ago. From looking on the forums I believe it is a Caribbean rose coral. The crazy part is that I had the live rock for 9-10 months before it was ever a glowing spec. The rock was from the gulf and I also got some star corals, cup corals, some interesting anemones but nothing else this colorful.

I feed it like most of my corals and it eagerly takes the food. I thought I read somewhere that eventually it would break itself off the rock and live in the sand bed. Anyone else have any in tank experience with these?

Thanks, John

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Do you have a picture with just your whites on?

 

[John3]

Just took one. I have the tank under heavey blues/violets all day. Certainly takes the color out it lol

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Wow, that's really neat. I would keep feeding it pretty often and offer it a variety of things too. It looks really good compared to other Caribbean hitchikers I have seen

 

[John3]

Yeah I got the Florida live rock hoping for some cool stuff and was pretty disappointed once 95% of what was on the rock died during cycling and curing. I had this really cool mushroom or anemone that lasted for a long time and then it just up and left it’s spot to never be seen again. I’ll have to see if I can dig a pic up of that as well.

 

[John3]

This was my favorite. I always keep an eye out for it.

 

[reef lover]

Cool hitch hikers!!

 

[TexasReefer82]

This was my favorite. I always keep an eye out for it.

Where did you buy the live rock from?

I'm in the process of setting up what will be a strictly Caribbean Coral tank. Main corals will be gorgonians, Miami vice zoanthids, ricordea, and paly grandis. It's actually gonna look really cool!

I'd love to find some forbidden Caribbean stoney corals in my live rock, even if they're ugly, haha.

Am considering buying some uncured rock from KP Aquatics.

 

[John3]

The rock came from gulf live rock.com. It was their premium deco rock.

I also got 2 nice star corals, cup corals, a gorgonian that died during cycling, and some smaller coral polyps. Lots of sponges, tunicates(didn’t last), mussels, a cool mushroom coral that didn’t make it(my fault), oh and a mantis shrimp. Lots of other little critters as well.

The rose coral was by far the best looking. It didn’t pop up for a long time. I actually had to pop it off the rock and mount it on a plug because I had some zoas that were about to overgrow it.

 

[John3]

Updated pic of rose coral. Still doing good after I popped it off the main rock.

 

[TexasReefer82]

Updated pic of rose coral. Still doing good after I popped it off the main rock.

That rose coral looks fantastic!

 

[John3]

New progress shot. It’s growing flesh pretty good right now, I’d like to see some skeleton grow though. I also noticed some more green color coming in.

 

[John3]

I had to break this off a rock on the bottom of my tank and it’s been up on my frag rack. So maybe the lighting change is causing more green. I also started dosing Redsea colors trace elements so that is a possibility too.

 

[John3]

This coral went from awesome to dull pretty fast. I had to move it to my frag rack so I am guessing more light has turned it green.

 

[John3]

I moved this back down to the bottom and I can see some faint red stripes again. Hoping it can get back to it’s mostly red color.

 

[TexasReefer82]

I've had that happen to me before as well. I bought a favia frag recently, initially had a purple base with gold steaks. Now it's green, haha. I'm planning on epoxying it to a vertical rock surface in the near future so hopefully it regains its original coloration.

I'm still jealous of you're Rose corals. My Caribbean tank is now about six months old. Maybe time to consider buying some aquacultured Florida live rock and hoping for the best.

 

[Dr. Jim]

I know this is an old thread, but I just stumbled upon it. I was amazed to find two Rose Corals on the Primo Deco Rock that came from the Gulf of Mexico (from LiveRockNReef.com). One piece was badly damaged on about 1/3 of it's skeleton but it survived and regenerated. It was recommended not to "cure" the rock but just put it right in the tank. That worried me, but I did it, and no problems. (Apparently, 1 day out of water isn't enough to cause a massive die-off). The rock was loaded with other cool animals, too, like: an urchin, lots of sponges, a nice gorgonian, feather dusters, macro algaes and spaghetti worms.

Photos are about 3 mo old. Both have grown and look healthy, but they lost the red color and are uniformly green. (Under G5XR15's)

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Just came across this thread as it appears I got one of these guys on my Gulf live rock. It didn't show up till over a month after I got the rock in QT. I plucked it off, put it on a plug and dropped it in my DT.

I'm hoping it holds the color. What do you spot feed it, reef roids?

 

[Dr. Jim]

Just came across this thread as it appears I got one of these guys on my Gulf live rock. It didn't show up till over a month after I got the rock in QT. I plucked it off, put it on a plug and dropped it in my DT. I'm hoping it holds the color. What do you spot feed it, reef roids?

 

[Duncan62]

I know this is an old thread, but I just stumbled upon it. I was amazed to find two Rose Corals on the Primo Deco Rock that came from the Gulf of Mexico (from LiveRockNReef.com). One piece was badly damaged on about 1/3 of it's skeleton but it survived and regenerated. It was recommended not to "cure" the rock but just put it right in the tank. That worried me, but I did it, and no problems. (Apparently, 1 day out of water isn't enough to cause a massive die-off). The rock was loaded with other cool animals, too, like: an urchin, lots of sponges, a nice gorgonian, feather dusters, macro algaes and spaghetti worms.

Photos are about 3 mo old. Both have grown and look healthy, but they lost the red color and are uniformly green. (Under G5XR15's)

I've got some too!. I've been scared to remove it from the rock.