Are Deep Acroporas really deep??

[Johnyman]

Hi guys, i started this thread because i love to identify the Acropora species instead of giving them names like ORA, RAFT, etc...

In my identification one of my sources are the Veron books, "Corals of the World", and although was told me long time ago that A.Lokani, A. Caroliniana and other corals we can find in a deep place in the ocean, I realized in the Veron books that it could not be quite what that it looks like, In the book we can see corals like A. Lokani have a habitat in "Shallow reef environments", and the A. Caroliniana can be found in "Upper reef slopes.".
So why we identify them as deep corals? It's because it's shape? and the lack of PE? And because that, we associate it to the deep places in the ocean?

Besides that, i have seen corals like A.Caroliniana and A.Lokani in middle-up reef tanks without any light issue...

 

[reefmutt]

That's a good question and I don't really have an answer for you.
It seems that the smooth skinned corals, in general are called/considered 'deep water' even though many of them grow and are collected form higher spots in the reef..
It's a misnomer that has stuck. Now, even though they are not technically deep water corals, when you use the classification 'deep water' everybody knows what you are talking about..
The 'deep waters' happen to be many of my favorite corals.. And generally I do put them low on my tank.. Maybe because they tend to be plating type corals which look better near the bottom..

 

[Johnyman]

Exactly, it seems that the deep coral term took fashion in our hobby and any Acropora with this typical format, we have the tendency to say that are deep-water corals, but it couldn´t be.
As for placement, because of this term, we put the coral with many caution, but in the end does not seem to make sense to apply this "depth rule" for this type of corals.

 

[acro-ed]

I've been wondering the same. I just saw a tank this past weekend that had an A. caroliniana about 4" under a 400w radium. It looked awesome. Needless to say it has changed my perspective as to placement of the frag I just got.

-Ed

 

[Mark426]

Seems smooth skinned has become to be interpreted as deep water. Not necessarily true.

 

[vette.tech]

Seems smooth skinned has become to be interpreted as deep water. Not necessarily true.

This is unfortunately what has happened and for some unknown reason it peeves me....

Kind of like when people call gun magazines "clips"

 

[Johnyman]

Yup, thats truth, another thing similar with this is calling all acroporas an echinata simply because of is coralite form, but this is wrong. There is A.turaki, A.fenneri, A.carduus etc that can be the true name of many of this corals who are wrong identified.

Another example is the ORA Hawkins Echinata, that coral isn´t an echinata, maybe a turaki...

 

[shih87]

Good thread. If more pictures with smooth skin coral placement here will definitely help.
My current tank, I try to avoid dominate by "deep acro" but simply because of it is more plate type and fish poo stay easy and damage its skin somehow, sometimes. Saying that just remind me tonight check if need to use turkey baster for clean up.

 

[SpSChief85]

This is unfortunately what has happened and for some unknown reason it peeves me....

Kind of like when people call gun magazines "clips"

I was in the army for afew years and calling a magazine a clip drives me insane... a clip is found in a ammo box with around 10 rounds on it a magazine is what you put the rounds into after you take them off so they can be feed into a firearm.