German Blue?

[jpacker1508]

One of my favorite LFS keeps her corals under natural light in an outdoor greenhouse. Unfortunetly this does not do good things for the colors and you kind of have to guess what your gonna get. I have yet to be disappointed. 2 that I recently got (about 2 months ago. thats recent in this hobby right) Have colored up very nice and now I am trying to figure out what type of Digitata they are. Both are Monti. Digi. one has tan to cream skin and very bright blue/purple polyps. I'm thinking German Blue. and the other has very blue/purple skin and tan polyps. I'm thinking purple digitata. Sound right? I wish I could get some pictures up but everything looks like blobs. My reefkeeping is much better than my photo taking. Any ideas are welcome.

 

[Frick]

Does it speak fluent German? If not, then it's not German Blue Digitata, just Montipora cf. digitata. I'm kidding but serious as well. True German Blue Polyp Digitata comes from ORA. And with out lineage to ORAs original coral then it just makes it a blue polyp digitata.
http://www.orafarm.com/products/hardcoral/montipora/german-blue-polyp-digitata/
http://coral.aims.gov.au/speciesPages/species_metadata/0252/view#

Might not be a digitata also. There are other Montipora species that fool people just because the have branches. Here's some examples;

Montipora altasepta
http://coral.aims.gov.au/speciesPages/species_metadata/0456/view#

Montipora samarensis
http://coral.aims.gov.au/speciesPages/species_metadata/0453/view#

 

[jpacker1508]

Hey Jason thanks for the response. I didn't realize that the name was propietary to ORA, interesting. I just matched what I see to what I could find on google images and I guess a great deal of those probably aren't real either. oh well it's pretty to look at and grows like crazy and it looks great in the tank so that is all that really matters I guess. Thanks again. John

 

[Frick]

Hey Jason thanks for the response. I didn't realize that the name was propietary to ORA, interesting. I just matched what I see to what I could find on google images and I guess a great deal of those probably aren't real either. oh well it's pretty to look at and grows like crazy and it looks great in the tank so that is all that really matters I guess. Thanks again. John

If you can go back to the store and see if you can get a story out of it. Might be something more interesting you never know.

And you're right if it looks good and is healthy that is all that matters. :beer:

 

[jpacker1508]

I wish that was the case. This LFS keeps her stuff in large vats in a green house. Growth and health are great but most of her stuff is brown until it gets under indoor lighting. She gives me frags all the time to grow out so she knows what colors she has going on. So lineage is difficult at best. She does have some of the healthiest corals in the area, the sps stuff just needs a little time under aquarium lighting to look good but is ussually worth it. I have yet to be disappointed.