Coral ID's?

[Zimmer]

ok so i picked this up from LFS for a steal - it was labeled as "assorted coral". :facepalm: LOL ok..... so obviously there are a few mushrooms, i think i see 2 diff types but do they have names? also there's these little waving hands kinda hard to see on the right upper side, and on the left next to those it looks like something dead. LOL or maybe a sponge? or is it going to turn into something crazy one day? what have i done..... oh the curse of impulse buying!!:headwally:

 

[Sk8r]

Looks like xenia, maybe. See my post on an easy intro to reefing.

 

[chrisfont23]

The purple look like a dead GSP mat

 

[Zimmer]

Sk8r can you post a link? i can't find it

chrisfont23 - is that bad? should i pick it off? i wasn't sure what it was or was part of so i left it alone... is that white part just more of that but bleached out maybe? i need better pics

 

[footballdude2k3]

I would leave it, I dont think that is dead GSP, I think it is coraline, hard to tell from the picture though

 

[SushiGirl]

Mushroom, coralline (purple), sponge (white), and possibly unhealthy xenia (hands) or maybe even daisy polyps.. What's the brownish looking stuff over by the sponge & xenia? Pic is too blurry to tell if it's algae or maybe hydroids or small aiptasia. Any way to get a clearer pic?

 

[Zimmer]

ok so i already love these mushrooms, they are opening up so full and being so pretty the xenia/polyps/"waving hands" are looking soooo much better as well, they've fully extended and opened up! i guess the real question is what the heck is that other whitish thing?

sushigirl - i tried to get another, better detailed pic - in person, that brownish/clear stuff actually looks kinda like the skeleton of whatever that white stuff is.... its either dying off it or growing up onto it, hard to tell. also is there any way to tell for sure about this xenia/whatever it is?

 

[Caronte]

what kind of lights are you using? When I star the hobby, my mushroom looks like yours using the standard LED's from the hook package. After upgrading my lights to a reef capable LED's I found the WOW factor in some of them, turning from brown/reddish to a bright yellow or blue spotted

 

[Zimmer]

bah i know i feel my lights are icky looking... it was a cheap t5 fixture no name brand with bulbs included, 1 actinic and 1 10k daylight... but when they are on, they both just look white and everything in the tank is washed out looking. so im in progress of getting some new bulbs to see if that will help, and if that still doesn't do the trick i may supplement with an LED stunner strip or something along those lines...

 

[dthorn]

The purple looks more like green star polyps than xenia, I would be more worried about identifying the stuff we can't see in the pics. The brown/tan things too blurry to see in a couple places, the red macro algae maybe, and the dark red fuzzy algae visible near the top of the last picture. I am curious about identifying this last one myself, but haven't got around to it. Sushigirl is the master of this type of stuff, I bet she'll have more input with the better pictures you added. Hopefully, will save me some searching on the dark red fuzzy stuff that I'm curious about too. You may want to read the hitchiker sticky, it will show you a lot of the bad creatures that you should be watching for. Impulse buys from lfs usually come with all kinds of bad stuff most commonly aiptasia, but also all kinds of other things. Happy reefing!

 

[SushiGirl]

The purple still looks like coralline to me, just like mine. The white is sponge, I have some black that presents exactly the same way. Still not sure if that's recovering xenia or what, the fingers look too smooth but that can happen when they're in bad shape. It looks like majanos or something just beneath the bottom part of the sponge, the brown anemone looking things. You'll want to kill those for sure.

 

[Zimmer]

The fingers on the little hand corals are like.... barely.... feathered along the edges, they aren't completely smooth. Hopefully in the next few days it will continue to perk up and i can post some better pics later. i tried picking at the purple and the red stuff, i'm pretty sure its coralline because it wouldn't scrape up and was rock hard. and yes on the sponge, i'm pretty sure you're spot on because i was cleaning and happened to look at what was on the back of that rock.... the whole back of the rock is a white sponge! so that must be it creeping over to the top side or something..... do sponges leave skeletons if they die? i'll try to get some better pics again in a few days, maybe move this over to the hitchhiker thread? idk. anywho, thank you everyone for your help!!

 

[SushiGirl]

It might leave some dead tissue, but they don't have skeletons.

 

[Reeferz412]

looks like mushrooms, star polyps of some sort and the flakey stuff looks like coralline mixed with dead coralline. Looks like you got a starter coral pack that hasn't started on the right foot. That isn't your fault though.

 

[dthorn]

Sushigirl, in the top of the last pic the op posted just to the left of the white sponge, what is the dark red stuff? I see it in a few places in my tank and have been meaning to find out what it is. Has kind of a fuzzy consistency. I am guessing it's a type of algae but would like to find out more about it. Thought it might be appropriate to ask in this thread since I'm seeing it in the op's picture. Thanks!