I've started noticing new growths all over my live rock and am hoping someone can help me confirm what they are. I've included pictures below. In the first picture, the green cluster of polyps to the right of the elegance and left of the maxi-mini anemone is what I'm talking about. In the second picture all of the small clusters (yellowish) are what I'm talking about. They have the same polyp structure and I believe they are the same species, just with different coloration. They are all over the rock, in high-light areas.
ID Please -- coral propagating?
- Thread starter DanP-SD
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. . . hit post too soon. I believe these are new growths from my stylophora colony, which you can see in the top right of the last picture -- right in front of the upper foxface. I've had this coral for many years in two different tanks. In the prior tank, it reproduced an entire colony on the output pipe of my Sea Swirl and another on the netting I used on my weir. But these have somewhat different coloration and are growing more as encrusting patches without the digitation of the parent colony or prior offspring.
Looking for thoughts on what else they might be. Thanks.
PS: Sorry about the glare on the pics. I wanted to take these during mid-day when the tank light is at its brightest and, unfortunately, on sunny days, the room is so bright I get a lot of glare on the tank glass.
Looking for thoughts on what else they might be. Thanks.
PS: Sorry about the glare on the pics. I wanted to take these during mid-day when the tank light is at its brightest and, unfortunately, on sunny days, the room is so bright I get a lot of glare on the tank glass.
it does look like stylo patches. My first thought was a green stylo I saw at the lfs..."man thats a cool hitch hiker" lol
Other thought was tunicate but in my tank they only grow in the dark places.
Gorgeous tank by the way
Other thought was tunicate but in my tank they only grow in the dark places.
Gorgeous tank by the way
AllSignsPointToFish
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The green one definitely looks like Stylophora. The circular brown corals kind of look like young golf ball coral colonies.
Thanks for the input. It's hard to see in the pics but I don't think the polyp structure on the circular ones can be any type of favia. They certainly look structurally like a stylo, but I'm admittedly not great at coral ID -- especially on something this small. What makes me suspect the stylo (other than the polyp structure) is the fact that this particular colony has spread to other remote places in tanks before. From what I've read about stylos, the odds of it being some kind of spawning event seem incredibly remote or impossible. I haven't found any reference to this coral propagating by asexual budding but that seems a somewhat more likely answer. In my previous tank, the two new colonies that sprung up were definitely not hitchhikers since once grew on a Sea Swirl and one grew on the weir. These two colonies grew to the size of a tennis ball and golf ball, respectively and, at that size, were clearly identifiable as stylophora.
The odd thing is that, since moving the colony to its current tank, it hasn't grown much. It seems to be thriving in terms of color and polyp extension but I had my nutrients so low for so long that it wasn't growing so the emergence of these new growths in the past few months is surprising.
If anyone has had similar experience or has any insights into whether what I'm hypothesizing is even possible, I'd love to hear from you.
Thx.
The odd thing is that, since moving the colony to its current tank, it hasn't grown much. It seems to be thriving in terms of color and polyp extension but I had my nutrients so low for so long that it wasn't growing so the emergence of these new growths in the past few months is surprising.
If anyone has had similar experience or has any insights into whether what I'm hypothesizing is even possible, I'd love to hear from you.
Thx.
Thanks. It's finally at the stage where I think it's time to post a build thread.
