Cespitularia? Blue Xenia? Neither?

[InsaneClownFish]

Better English, still wrong. ;-)

Are you sure?

Here's my reasoning:

Under blue light if that is Cespitularia then it would have more of a florescence.
The first pic, taken with the flash, imho is more of what an African Cespitularia would look like under actinics. If you take a picture of Xenia under flash you will most likely see some level of florescence.
In the pictures without the flash there is no variation in color between the heads and stalk- this is not a characteristic of true Cespitularia.
The reason I don't think it is Blue Xenia is because most of the Xenia I have had, that enters my tank that color, and identical to the second two pictures, even some I have mistaken for Cespitularia, ends up being Silver Xenia.

 

[Gordonious]

Are you sure?
Under blue light if that is Cespitularia then it would have more of a florescence.

Not necessarily. If you believe that is always the case I'll buy corals from you stick them under a frag rack or in a dark tank for a week and sell you albino/translucent corals. Many studies have shown corals in brighter light will develop more florescence and you'll see this hands on when you have a bit more experience.

Are you sure?
The first pic, taken with the flash, imho is more of what an African Cespitularia would look like under actinics. If you take a picture of Xenia under flash you will most likely see some level of florescence.
In the pictures without the flash there is no variation in color between the heads and stalk- this is not a characteristic of true Cespitularia.

Do you have a source to quote for this characteristic? I doubt any scientific literature would refer to it as a head. I'm not saying I have a source to counter, but I would disagree with your opinion here. Again I think the coral in question wasn't in the same exact conditions as the corals you keep in your aquarium and is exhibiting different phenotypic characteristics, but is in fact Cespitularia in my opinion.

I've kept at least eight corals in this family for many years now in a very wide range of conditions. The image at the top very much looks like Cespitulaira to me, but I wouldn't bet my life on it I could be wrong.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Gordonious, take a look at this page of my build thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1474765&page=24

There are quite a few pictures of some African Cespitularia - in fact this coral was so strikingly different from Xenia in color, stalk length, and texture that I thought it might even be a leather at some point. This one grew in a very unique shape/pattern. Pay careful attention to the auto shots without the white balance adjusted. The top down shot is completely unique.

I too could be wrong. Anything is possible. All I know is that the shots from the OP look way closer to the Xenias I have held in my system, in color, and stalk size. I've seen that feint blue grey. I've purchased it from LFS before hoping it was blue Xenia they had mis-marked. Give it time and change the lights a bit and it's silver Xenia.

 

[cjdevito]

I'm not sure why a two year old thread has been dug up to continue arguing about, but I'll settle it once and for all: it's cespitularia.

Everyone arguing xenia based on a variety of questionable characteristics is missing the defining one... structure. Look at the growth pattern, the physical structure of stalks arising from stalks arising from stalks, of single stalk-less individual polyps budding from the any old place on the column. Or how the rope-y polyp stalks are conjoined for most of their length before seperating into individual stalks. This is not how xenia or heteroxenia is built.

Of course, the duotone light blue body/peach polyp coloration also happens to be that of ORAs cespitularia morph exactly. Which may not be easy to spot unless you've seen ORAs cespitularia in person, as their marketing photos are all taken from above to emphasize the blue coloration.

 

[cjdevito]

For reference, here's a photo of a frag of mine (ORA cespit) that's a big larger and fully extended. It should accentuate the differences a little more vividly...

 

[livingcorals]

Kind of wish we can get an updated pic with daylights. I have always seen the cesp..xenia to have an orangeish tint on the crown. I have seen silver tips to look almost identical to the 1st photos.
cjd, the blue bali grows the same way just as you stated.

 

[cjdevito]

Kind of wish we can get an updated pic with daylights. I have always seen the cesp..xenia to have an orangeish tint on the crown.

Not always. LSA grows two different blue morphs, one with the typical peach polyps and the other where the polyp coloration is just a paler version of the stalk color. OTOH, they also grow a pink cespit where the polyps are really, geniunely orange.

I've also seen photos of a green cespit with yellow polyps, but I'm unaware of anyone actually growing this variety.

cjd, the blue bali grows the same way just as you stated.

I hate common names; which one is the blue bali? I thought it was the same heteroxenia species that liveaquaria markets as 'octopus ink', but that description above definitely doesn't fit that animal.

 

[livingcorals]

Think with out another daylight photo we will never be able to tell. (I say no to Cespitularia tho lol)

Think we can maybe close this thread since I do believe 'rytrearc' is no longer in the hobby. From his/her last post a while back, mostly stating for sale on everything.

This will be my last post in this thread.
Happy Reef'n ALL!

 

[Gordonious]

Not always. LSA grows two different blue morphs, one with the typical peach polyps and the other where the polyp coloration is just a paler version of the stalk color. OTOH, they also grow a pink cespit where the polyps are really, geniunely orange.

I've also seen photos of a green cespit with yellow polyps, but I'm unaware of anyone actually growing this variety.




I hate common names; which one is the blue bali? I thought it was the same heteroxenia species that liveaquaria markets as 'octopus ink', but that description above definitely doesn't fit that animal.

I have looked for a long time for anyone keeping different species of Cespitularia then me. Who is LSA? Online or local?

I have a purple with yellow polyps and a blue like the one I linked to earlier.

 

[cjdevito]

LSA = Lonestar Aquaculture, a texas based aquaculture farm. Most of their stock goes to shops to texas, but a few on-line vendors get their stuff as well.

http://www.lonestaraquaculture.com/


Looks like they only have two different cespitularias in production now, down from what I remember.

 

[lgtentacle]

It's xenia in my opinion. Cespitularia usually tends to have alot more dimpling on the base of the stalks where as xenia tends to be more smooth (but this isn't always the case). The palms also tend to be more feathery on the cespitularia compared to the xenia (this is more common), but you can't really see the palms in the original picture since they aren't open. To cover cjdevito's point about the growth structure, silver tip xenia will often look like this in high current settings since they grow sideways due to the high current rather than in the usual individual looking stalks in lower current settings.

It's just my opinion though, and opinions are like A-holes, everybodies got one.