Coral Identification

[Splitcane]

Fist of all I'd like to say thank you to everyone who chimed in with advice on cycling my 50g tank. It went well and I've recently added a clean up crew (hermits and snails) along with a Firefish Goby. That's it for the moment with fish and CUC. My LFS had 2 frags they were basically giving away. The guy said they'd been there for a while and only had a few heads left on them. He sold them to me for $5 bucks. I have them in a QT for the time being but I figured for $5, why not?. He had no idea what type of coral they are so I thought I'd post a pic and see if anyone could identify them and if so, maybe offer some advice on "bringing them back" Any help is appreciated.

 

[mcgyvr]

button polyps
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+2856+670&pcatid=670

 

[Splitcane]

Thanks for the reply. After looking at some images of what I guess are healthy examples, these look pretty bad..or maybe they just need to acclimate? Any ideas?

 

[lifeoffaith]

They look like they will be fine. They're probably just a bit stressed. As long as they have some decent light and the parameters in your qt are ok, they should do fine. They can also be rather invasive, so I would suggest keeping on rocks separated by sand from your main rocks.

 

[mcgyvr]

They are just closed up..
They will open as they become happy with the surroundings..
And each night when the light goes off they will close again and then when light comes back on they will open again..

 

[shadowmonster]

These links might help.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/inverts

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_1/cav1i1/blane-zoanthids/zoanthids.htm

Don't forget to check out the other articles at the bottom of the second link.

 

[Splitcane]

Shadow Monster, those links are great...Thank you. and thank you Shadowmonster and lifeoffaith for the input. For the 5 dollars I spent, I'm sure it will be worth it..They opened up a bit this evening. I'll just let them acclimate and see what happens. I'm also glad that I put them in a QT because I saw something that resembled what we in the north east used to call Potato Bugs or Roly Poly bugs crawling around on them...it was too small and too fast to get a picture. Grey in color and crawling around the base of the buttons..then it quickly moved off to a piece of rock and out of sight. Any idea what it may have been? Good/Bad?

 

[OrQidz]

The little roly poly critters sound like pods. Normal and a good thing.

The button polyps are a hardy and undemanding coral, so good choice on those. I think they will perk up and settle in quickly.

 

[Splitcane]

Thanks...I think you are right on the pods. I read thru the "Critters that come in your rocks" sticky and that's exactly what it looked like.