Small, Green and Static

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

We have had this for 2 years now it is half an inch across, never moves but appears to have a mouth. Looked across many sites but haven't seen a photo that fits it. Either I'm blind, daft, or there aren't any other good photos of it

. Alternatively SETI was just looking the wrong way! It looks a bit like the centre bit is a cover when I looked at the photo, could it be a form of Mollusc ???

It has been subjected to all sorts of terrible conditions in the earlier days of our tank, but just sits there like some bizarre decoration.

Thanks in advance for anything that can shed some light on this mystery.

jeffchapok · Mar 23, 2020

Some sort of mushroom? Is it hard or soft? It looks a little like my ricordia when it is shrunken up except for the mouth.

ZipAdeeZoa · Mar 23, 2020

Looks kind of like some sort of donut coral or button scoly, have you ever tried feeding it?

Mr_Knightley · Mar 23, 2020

Looks to me like a Scolymia Vitiensis, nice find! They are pretty uncommon in the general trade. Hope it brightens up for you!

Tahoe61 · Mar 23, 2020

Could be a Chalice type.

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

jeffchapok said:
Some sort of mushroom? Is it hard or soft? It looks a little like my ricordia when it is shrunken up except for the mouth.

It is definitely hard.

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

ZipAdeeZoa said:
Looks kind of like some sort of donut coral or button scoly, have you ever tried feeding it?

We hadn't, but we just have and it responded to feeding. We were shocked!. It must be build like a tank, we bought the stone because it had some crust anemones on. They died when we listened to our pet shop and bought two small orange anemones for the tank, which committed suicide in the wave pump and nearly killed everything that we had. We had a
Sarcophyton ehrenbergi which shrunk to a quarter of the size and bent double on the stem. Nitrate was too red to read. This Coral survived it all, when a number of soft corals didn't. Fixed the problem with an emergency 100% water change. Surprisingly we had also been sold (perhaps too early) the Galaxea, which also survived the Catastrophe.

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

Mr_Knightley said:
Looks to me like a Scolymia Vitiensis, nice find! They are pretty uncommon in the general trade. Hope it brightens up for you!

I think that you may be right. When I googled the species some of them looked similar but in different colours. Ours is really like an old button. I will have to find out how to look after it properly now. Although it does lood like it has grown in diameter by a mm or two.

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

Tahoe61 said:
Could be a Chalice type.

The way it looks at the moment the Scolymia vitiensis also called Lobophyllia Vitiensis, looks to be the most likely although Vitiensis seems to cover quite a few different appearances.

jerrod · Mar 23, 2020

Easy way to check if its a scoly is at night, see if there is a ring of tentacles coming out of the center. It will open up much larger than that of a chalice
.

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

when I fed it the central section pulled back to make a mouth. Unfortunately the feeding test made a couple of my other corals hungry.First in the queue was the Yellow Caulastrea.

Riqaq · Mar 23, 2020

jerrod said:
Easy way to check if its a scoly is at night, see if there is a ring of tentacles coming out of the center. It will open up much larger than that of a chalice
.

Thanks, I will try to have a look.

ZipAdeeZoa · Mar 23, 2020

Riqaq said:
We hadn't, but we just have and it responded to feeding. We were shocked!. It must be build like a tank, we bought the stone because it had some crust anemones on. They died when we listened to our pet shop and bought two small orange anemones for the tank, which committed suicide in the wave pump and nearly killed everything that we had. We had a
Sarcophyton ehrenbergi which shrunk to a quarter of the size and bent double on the stem. Nitrate was too red to read. This Coral survived it all, when a number of soft corals didn't. Fixed the problem with an emergency 100% water change. Surprisingly we had also been sold (perhaps too early) the Galaxea, which also survived the Catastrophe.

It's awesome that it survived all of that! It's also awesome that it ate for you, if its something in the scoly group then a lack of feeding might also explain why its grown so slowly for you- that group as a whole is just really slow growing but feeding them regularly should certainly yield more growth.