Siderastrea radians, what do we know?

[Alexraptor]

So I've had this encrusting LPS that I have no idea of what it was, and yesterday I took a new crack at identifying it.



I had a major breakthrough when I discovered this video on YouTube, showing caribbean rock being packed out.

Which lead me to doing a deep dive into corals exclusively found in the caribbean, and ultimately I arrived at the Lesser Starlet Coral, Siderastrea radians. And what's more, I found this research article that showed how the coral recovered lost tissue. Colony A on the page, exactly reflects the state of this coral when my rock arrived.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Siderastrea-radians-colonies-at-different-stages-of-tissue-recovery-following-exposure-to_fig1_241036109

Now what seems to be a bit unusual for my specimen, is the polyp extension present. From descriptions of this species, as well as the footage of it in the wild, it seems to only expand to feed at night. Mine didn't seem to get the memo.

Here's a comparison between it being withdrawn and expanded.


Now what I want to know is, does anyone else have experience with this LPS? How aggressive is it? Should I keep it alone on its rock, for risk of being overgrown by other corals? Or can it hold its own?

 

[Timfish]

I have several colonies I' ve found on gulf live rock. The oldest is about 15 years old now. They seem to be fairly slow growing and not very aggressive. They're in a mixed reef that gets medium light levels so that is ceertainly a fgactor in their slow growth. Since they seem to be nornally found closer tot the surface the spectrum one guess is the spectrum is too blue for them.

 

[Alexraptor]

Very interesting. My new system is focused on allowing daylight and direct sunlight in, via the skylight. Should be interesting to see how it grows in an environment that it should be more at home in.

But the fact that it may be a slow grower tells me I should probably let it have the rock to itself.

 

[Timfish]

It may like direct sunlight but if you're trying to grow other corals the intensity and spectrum as well as the seasonal changes can be an issue. I don't ahve any Siderastrea radians in this system but this system get's direct sunlight everyday and a major challenge has been finding corals that do well with the changes. There are daily changes in spectrum, intensity is about the same between LEDs and sunlight but direction is different. There are also seasonal changes in the amount of sunlight, from about half an hour at the winter solstace and about 2 hours at the summer solstace.