Found tiny dot months ago....now has grown into....?

[MarsRover]

Hey Folks,

I've been meaning to do this for a while now.

Around August, i found on a piece of rubble in my tank, by chance, a pinhead sized orange dot. It was clear it was something that had just sprouted and i was curious about what it was so i decided to cultivate it and see.

It has grown large enough that i think i can reasonably take photos of it. This morning it was feeding and looked so good i decided to start a thread.














Any ideas?

 

[minus9]

http://www.melevsreef.com/node/360

 

[Reincarnate]

Blastomussa?

 

[minus9]

http://www.melevsreef.com/node/360

Oops! Apparently I was distracted by all the worms and skimmed over your post w/o reading it thoroughly.
It's hard to tell by the pic, but it could be an acan? blasto? etc... Only time will tell.

 

[aromano]

does it look like it has a skeleton. If no could be a rhodactis mushroom

 

[MarsRover]

Blastomussa?

Possible. that was one of my guesses. I never had a blasto before and I don't really know much about them other than what i have seen in the LFS's

Oops! Apparently I was distracted by all the worms and skimmed over your post w/o reading it thoroughly.
It's hard to tell by the pic, but it could be an acan? blasto? etc... Only time will tell.

Acan (i'm guessing you mean Acanthastrea) is another one of my guesses.... we will see!

does it look like it has a skeleton. If no could be a rhodactis mushroom

I highly doubt it is a rhodactis. It might just be an artifact of the images youre looking at, but in real life it doesn't look like a rhodactis at all. it looks smaller in the pictures than it does in real life. It is probably 4mm across right now and i can resolve detail on it enough.




I don't know if it is my hopes blinding my objectivity, but my last guess is Acanthophyllia. I love Acanthophyllia's and it does have what looks like a similar mouth structure in the middle. Trachyphyllia have the same sort of mouth, same with lobophyllia.

My guess is that it is more likely one of the latter three mentioned just by the looks of it, how it morphs when it's eating, and how it morphs when a crab comes and makes it retract.

Excited to see where this goes and document it here!

 

[MarsRover]

http://www.melevsreef.com/node/360

Just another note on the worms, they are fracking everywhere! They don't bother me much, but they really are everywhere. That and lots of little feather dusters, literally thousands.

I always took that as a sign of a healthy tank.....no?

 

[minus9]

They're harmless and dusters are nice. One of my previous tanks was covered in red feather dusters, great filter feeders.
Btw, congrats on the hitchhiker, it looks like it will be a very colorful piece.

 

[MarsRover]

Camera came over last week after work but forgot a memory card....

But yesterday, my mother came into town to visit and we went to unique corals and she went a little bonkers with getting stuff for my tank while chatting with the owner, Joe. She got me an acanthophyllia....stoked.

Anyway, while I was digging around in my tank to fit the new guys in I moved my frag rack to a better location for iPhone photo.

Attached are good photos i took this morning of the mystery coral! One is of it all closed up cause i ****ed it off when i moved it to take these photos.

 

[MarsRover]

ahh jeeze....they reduced the quality so much it's hard to see them...

 

[MarsRover]

Okay this should be better

 

[TangingOut]

Judging by the skeleton, probably a favia or favites.

 

[aromano]

that last picture makes it not look like a blasto. I don't think their feeders look like that at least mine don't. They tend to be more at edge. Looks acanish but with only one polyp hard to tell could also be a favia or favites .once it gets bigger and gets a few new heads will be easier to ID

 

[aromano]

looking back at your early pics might also be a lobophylia from looking at the old skeleton its on

 

[MarsRover]

It's growing new mouths! I think this likely removes the possibility of it being an Acanthophyllia, Lobophyllia, and Trachyphyllia. I think it increases the likelihood of Acanthastrea and maybe Blastomussa? Anyone have better ideas now with these new growths?!?!

 

[aromano]

look up acan bowerbankii or hillae.

 

[MarsRover]

of those two, it looks more like hillae but other folks on ********* seem to be certain it is an echinata. I'm not convince of any of them yet honestly. Every one of these i look at i can seem some features that differ that make me think it might be something else.

I guess we will all have to wait a little while longer until it grows bigger!

 

[aromano]

could be an echinata a few more mouths so you can really see the growth pattern and structure will probably help define it Its nice whichever it turns out to be.

 

[PederP]

Favites "war coral" is my guess