Magicians vs speckled red people eaters

roshi719 · Aug 7, 2009

I have had people tell me they are two different morphs. I believe I have them both, and will try to get a pic up tonight of them side by side. I was told that magicians only have the speckles around the mouth where SRPE's have the speckles all over the oral disc. I have seen pics with speckles all over the oral disc labled as magicians though, what gives?

What are the experts opinions?

seafansar · Aug 7, 2009

I vote they are the same thing just a little bit different morphs of each other. My magicians get more speckles when they are in higher light and fewer in lower light.

I could be wrong. I haven't actually seen any labeled speckled RPE. Posting pics of yours to compare would help.

macclellan · Aug 7, 2009

I don't believe Magicians are even Zoanthus gigantus, aka 'PEs,' which are distinguished by the green-slit mouth and striations on the closed polyps. So, definitely different corals, even if they look somewhat similar in generic respects (maroon with green speckles).

Here is the clearest pic I have of a magician polyp I just got:

RadReef · Aug 7, 2009

There are two different morphs. The magician's speckles are a blue/green color where speckled red people eaters have white speckles. And no it's not just lighting because I have both....

Sikryd · Aug 7, 2009

Here is my Magicians -

RadReef · Aug 7, 2009

Beautiful Sykrid! I love magicians, they're probably my favorites.

ddr_phish · Aug 8, 2009

If I'm not mistaken, people eater's have to have green mouths too right? Those Magicians have normal mouths.

Btw, beautiful shots guys!

droblack · Aug 8, 2009

I agree Ddr Phish, PE's should have neon green mouths from what I understand.

Sikryd · Aug 8, 2009

Magicians are palys. I don't know about the SRPE though.

They are my favorite zoa/palys by far. I have or have had a lot, including PH's.

It'll be cool to see a picture of the SRPE's.

seafansar · Aug 8, 2009

Here're mine.

Sikryd · Aug 8, 2009

Nice Sara, I like those -

Do you have them in lower light? They will color up better under (tentacles) ~300 par

macclellan · Aug 8, 2009

ddr_phish said:
If I'm not mistaken, people eater's have to have green mouths too right? Those Magicians have normal mouths.

Ya, as stated above:

macclellan said:
I don't believe Magicians are even Zoanthus gigantus, aka 'PEs,' which are distinguished by the green-slit mouth and striations on the closed polyps. So, definitely different corals, even if they look somewhat similar in generic respects (maroon with green speckles).

seafansar · Aug 8, 2009

They were at the bottom of my tank under 150W MH's, but that picture was taken before I moved. They're in a frag tank right now. I'll see tomorrow if they've colored up any.

RadReef · Aug 8, 2009

I don't have a picture of my SRPEs but they started life as normal RPE and under lower light conditions became speckled with white on the oral disc. They looked just like everyone elses SRPEs. So, maybe all RPEs can be speckled depending on the light?? I would like to get some Halos, they look magicians but are ringed on the outer edge of the oral disc by the tentacles in the same blue/green color as the speckles, very cool!

Sikryd · Aug 8, 2009

seafansar said:
They were at the bottom of my tank under 150W MH's, but that picture was taken before I moved. They're in a frag tank right now. I'll see tomorrow if they've colored up any.

I just figured I would throw that out there. I thought most zoa's were low light, bottom of the tank - but have since learned a lot of them really do well under higher light. Same with flow, some really like it, some don't.

RadReef · Aug 8, 2009

Sikryd said:
I just figured I would throw that out there. I thought most zoa's were low light, bottom of the tank - but have since learned a lot of them really do well under higher light. Same with flow, some really like it, some don't.

I keep most of mine under 10 wpg and in high enough flow that their skirts whip around in the current, they love it.

macclellan · Aug 8, 2009

RadReef said:
So, maybe all RPEs can be speckled depending on the light??

I doubt that. My RPEs have been in really low light for a few months and have no speckles.

Sikryd · Aug 8, 2009

macclellan said:
I doubt that. My RPEs have been in really low light for a few months and have no speckles.

My thought would be, just like the PPE morph - higher light brings out the speckles.
I don't know though - I haven't tried it.
I will now, just for fun though.
I'll transfer them up from ~150 par to ~400 over the next couple months to see what happens.

RadReef · Aug 8, 2009

Sikryd said:
My thought would be, just like the PPE morph - higher light brings out the speckles.
I don't know though - I haven't tried it.
I will now, just for fun though.
I'll transfer them up from ~150 par to ~400 over the next couple months to see what happens.

My PPEs never had speckles in my nano and currently they've been under mhs for about two weeks now and they have small white speckles around their mouths kind of like hybrids.