Name This Cyphastrea

[NeuroticAquatics]

I originally thought it was Meteor Shower but it's more of a purplish base with pink polyps.

It came on a big rock from a tank rescue and I did not even see it at first. It also appears to have a monti and some kind of SPS stick on it. All started off tiny and have grown a lot over the last year. This is in my 240g FOWLR, which I do very little maintenance to as far as water changes. I'm surprised they are doing okay. I generally don't do SPS, so I'm no good with names, so any help is appreciated!

 

[Highgrade]

Looks like a meter shower. Different lighting will bring out different colors in the base and polyps

 

[iReefer]

+1 on Meteor showers

 

[stevo01]

Wouldnt it be awesome if it was JF lethal injection?!

 

[stevo01]

That colony looks like a couple years old.

 

[stevo01]

Oh yeah +1 on the shower but there can be morphs so thats what this might be.

 

[ChiCity]

If grown right, they get this smooth darker baby blue base with really sweet orange and red corallites

Really sweet coral too that'll encrust anything, even in the dark!

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

I got the rock about a year ago with several others from a 120g that I helped break down. I had no idea it had anything on it. It was in my 240g tank for a while and I did not even notice anything on it until one night I walked by and saw a few specks of the pink when the actinics were on. It started off as maybe a dozen polyps and has grown incredibly fast. I've even broken off pieces to put into my 60g, but they do not look nearly as nice or die. The Monti has gone from about 1/4 dime size to 10x at least. The other I'm not sure about as I have never ventured into sticks. I will try to get a pic of the others tomorrow. Might as well try to figure them out here too.

Thanks for the super quick responses.

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

Wouldnt it be awesome if it was JF lethal injection?!

I just looked that up. No yellow rim to the pink polyps unfortunately.

 

[stevo01]

I just looked that up. No yellow rim to the pink polyps unfortunately.

Made you look

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

Made you look

I've never heard of that, so I had to. I'm all about learning (even after about 30 years in the hobby). Stupid stuff like this turns me on to new things and even though I'm more of a zoa/paly and LPS guy, I'm now looking at expanding my choices.

The crazy thing to me is that my FOWLR, which I guess is not really that anymore, is probably a candidate for how not to keep a Reef tank. I might do two 60g water changes a year, don't dose, don't even monitor parameters. I have four eBay LED black boxes lighting the thing. I have since started adding corals from my 60g Reef cube just to see how they do and they are looking better than in my Reef. Go figure. I added a Orange lepastrea, a green monti cap and some plain zoas. The Lep took off growing, the monti and zoas look fine.