Did I get a coral hitchhiker?

[MaMe]

I’m setting up a new aquarium and got this live rock. There was an area of textured brown that was different from the rest of the rock. Over the last week, it has plumped up and started growing tentacles. Is this a coral?

Large section

More nearby (you can see the tentacles it’s growing)

Under a black light

 

[samnaz]

Definitely a coral. I'm thinking leptoseris or psammocora.

 

[Dsnakes]

I'm thinking pavona coral maybe?

 

[Dsnakes]

Definitely a coral. I'm thinking leptoseris or psammocora.

I had thought lepto first as well, but for some reason the tentacles made me think pavona. Yet it really isn't branching like pavona does.

Lepto seems the most likely

 

[MaMe]

From looking up those types, I think it might be the green Pavona. Though I’m not sure why it seems to be growing against the rock instead of branching out. (Then again, who knows what it used to look like in a previous life. We got this rock out of the live rock bin at our fish store. We’re pretty sure it used to be in someone else’s tank because there is white epoxy in places.) I guess we will see how it grows. If it grows more. I’m only running a biocube 32 and hadn’t planned on doing SPS since I heard they don’t do well.

I’m only a week and a half into the cycling of this tank. And I have no experience yet with corals. Do I add calcium to the water? Guess I need to go read up. [emoji851]

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I’d go with pavona as well. A close if not exact family of the lepto.

You won’t meed to do anything to help it grow really.
However , it can grow out of controll like a gsp , Xenia monti and cyphasteria.

It’ll begin to form potato chips in higher flow.
A very neat thing ya got there!


https://reefs.com/2017/06/14/pavona-leptoseris-dang-coral/