Can someone ID this for sure...
- Thread starter KJoFan
- Start date
cloak
New member
Interesting but I'm not sure that's it. It's very thin, and all of those seem to be thicker and have more too them. This is just a thin skeleton with a thin layer of flesh over it.
As stated above, this has a thin skeleton to it, the mushrooms I'm thinking of are softies, no skeleton.
Thanks for the input so far, anyone else?
mallorieGgator
New member
looks almost like a chalice.
I'd say scolyoma too, with a lot of tissue recession. Did you dip it when you got it?
I bought this as a "lobed brain" but it's not, the problem is I don't know what it really is!
So can someone positively ID it for me?
Positively? Nope. But I think the scolymia-guessing folks are completely off base, it looks like a single mouth mycedium. Be easier to tell for sure once it's grown a bit, but I'd still bet money on it even as small as it currently is. Pectinia's possible - certainly more so than scolymia - but with the striation pattern I'm more inclined to think mycedium that hasn't developed any emergent nodule polyps yet.
The only good photo I could find of a similarly small, single mouthed mycedium is on a website that RC won't let me link to, so I can't post it here for reference. Here's the next best pic I could find in a quick search. Yours has the most common color morph for mycedium, the one in the pic is a definite oddball with it's color.
http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploader/2006Q4/Myc1.JPG
seapug
Premium Member
Either very starved Scolymia vitiensis or some sort of Chalice-type thing. I'm leaning toward Chalice, probably Mycedium because of the thin skeleton, maybe some oddball pectinia (which really are in the same family as other chalice Genera). There's a lot of them around now that are hard to ID.
username in use
Sciencing Daily
Im leaning towards the chalice crowd due to the growth pattern around the rock whereas a scoly would probably maintain its form, growing up and off the rock.
Personally, I believe they're mistaken but right or not you're not going to be able to tell for sure until it grows and puts on some mass. Take a look at the photos at the top of this thread, they display the two tell-tale characteristics of pectinia...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1821663
The first and obvious one is of course the presence of the horns. But take a look at the flesh over the horns in the second photo, it's a nice close up with a lot of detail. Notice how the flesh has a distinctive pattern? It's only visible when looking closely, and while it covers nearly all of the flesh of the coral it stands out the most on the horns. Every pectinia, regardless of color morph or growth pattern, is going to display this pattern.
It doesn't look from the photos as if your coral does. But if yours is a pectinia it looks half starved and the pattern really only shows up well on the fleshiest bits, so I wouldn't entirely rule it out.
On the other hand, it doesn't look half starved if it's a mycedium, which tend to have fairly thin layers of tissue stretched over their skeletal bases. The fact that the tissue covering the spurs of bone appears paler than the surrounding tissue is because the flesh is thinner there and you're actually seeing the white bone through the tissue layer.. which is very common in mycedium.
All of which makes me think mycedium, but you'll have to wait til it develops defining characteristics - either horns for pectinia or nasute polyps for mycedium - before you'll know for sure.
username in use
Sciencing Daily
one question that has yet to be asked, How big is this thing that we are looking at?
Ok here are some pictures from yesterday showing it a little more fleshed out:
I have only had this in my tank for just shy of 3 weeks. The tissue damage at the bottom was from me knocking it off a rock while rearranging probably a week+ ago.
Size wise it is roughly 3" long by 1.5" wide.
ETA: The lack of tissue on the "horn" is also from it being dropped.
I have only had this in my tank for just shy of 3 weeks. The tissue damage at the bottom was from me knocking it off a rock while rearranging probably a week+ ago.
Size wise it is roughly 3" long by 1.5" wide.
ETA: The lack of tissue on the "horn" is also from it being dropped.
