Small LPS Polyp ID

[chrisc123]

Hi all,

Anyone able to confidently ID the small LPS polyp shown in the photo below? (Photo-bombing barnacle blenny for scale!). The tentacles seem to be extended pretty continuously throughout the day, not just at night.

Grown slowly over the past few months since first noticing it - I do have a suspicion on what it could be but will hold off mentioning it to avoid the confirmation bias.

Cheers
Chris.

 

[ahiggins]

No idea on the coral but you should use that pic for your profile! That blenny is too precious

 

[RyanSweet]

Corallomorpharia (ball anemone)

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Corallomorpharia (ball anemone)

It looks similar but this coral appears to actually have a stony skeleton of an lps... very interesting how it’s clear though. Perhaps it’s an anemone living on the skeleton... if it is an lps, my money’s on it being a scoly....

 

[ahiggins]

Ball anemones don’t have skeletons though...it looks like that one def has a lps skelly

 

[najer]

Baby fungia?

 

[Retro Reefer]

Looks like a plate coral (fungia)

 

[WV Reefer]

Baby fungia?

Looks like a plate coral (fungia)

I agree. Looks like a baby plate coral

 

[RyanSweet]

It looks similar but this coral appears to actually have a stony skeleton of an lps... very interesting how it’s clear though. Perhaps it’s an anemone living on the skeleton... if it is an lps, my money’s on it being a scoly....

Ball anemones don’t have skeletons though...it looks like that one def has a lps skelly

Good call. I didn’t zoom in on the pic well enough to see the skeleton

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks like a dying hammer or torch coral skeleton.

 

[Cell]

Hard to tell. It looks like it has tentacles, but they are very translucent.

 

[chrisc123]

So my hope is that it might be a little baby cynarina - any thoughts on that?

I had a large-ish (~10cm dia) cynarina in the tank that died around 3 years ago after a move and wondering if this could be the result of some kind of polyp bail-out from all that time ago?

Seems like an awfully long time to have elapsed and it still be this small, but things like the septae pattern, tentacle structure, central mouth and general translucency seem (to my entirely untrained eye) like they stack up.

The only other LPS in the tank are acans, caulastrea, euphyllia, hynophora, platygyra - not really sure it matches up with any of those?

Should say that this tank is about 5 years old and haven't added any live rock in 3+yrs, so probably not a hitchhiker.

 

[WV Reefer]

So my hope is that it might be a little baby cynarina - any thoughts on that?

I had a large-ish (~10cm dia) cynarina in the tank that died around 3 years ago after a move and wondering if this could be the result of some kind of polyp bail-out from all that time ago?

Seems like an awfully long time to have elapsed and it still be this small, but things like the septae pattern, tentacle structure, central mouth and general translucency seem (to my entirely untrained eye) like they stack up.

The only other LPS in the tank are acans, caulastrea, euphyllia, hynophora, platygyra - not really sure it matches up with any of those?

Should say that this tank is about 5 years old and haven't added any live rock in 3+yrs, so probably not a hitchhiker.

After looking at skeletons it could be a cynarina. .....That would be really cool after all this time.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

So my hope is that it might be a little baby cynarina - any thoughts on that?

I had a large-ish (~10cm dia) cynarina in the tank that died around 3 years ago after a move and wondering if this could be the result of some kind of polyp bail-out from all that time ago?

Seems like an awfully long time to have elapsed and it still be this small, but things like the septae pattern, tentacle structure, central mouth and general translucency seem (to my entirely untrained eye) like they stack up.

The only other LPS in the tank are acans, caulastrea, euphyllia, hynophora, platygyra - not really sure it matches up with any of those?

Should say that this tank is about 5 years old and haven't added any live rock in 3+yrs, so probably not a hitchhiker.

Very possible. It takes a long time for new stony corals to actually develop. That’s probably the most likely possibility since you had one a few years ago