I suck at coral IDs, please help (pics)

[mathias999us]

Posted this in the general reefing section also, and was directed here, so sorry for the redundancy.

Even with my bourneman corals book, I still have a tough time IDing corals. I picked up a couple small frags tonight for a good price from an LFS. They were basically wallowing in the rubble beneath the egg crate in the prop tank, but I've had my eye on them for a few months, and they seemed to do OK in relatively poor conditions, so I thought I'd give 'em a shot. I just added these to my tank, so they are pretty retracted.

Frag 1. Some Favia sp maybe?

Frag 2. These polyps were a lot more expanded/inflated in the store tank, maybe like blasto or caulastrea?

Thanks much for your help!

 

[BLKTANG]

Hey man sorry i asked you to post this here i thought you would get more help.


Common people 16 views in a LPS forum,& nobody can help out this new guy??

 

[weaselslucks]

the first look a lot like mine and its a christmas favia (Favia speciosa?)
and the other looks like a chalace to me

 

[Hormigaquatica]

First is a Favia. Second- cant tell; its not a Blastomussa or Caulastrea though.

 

[seapug]

Both look like Echinophyllia to me. First one just doesn't have the tissue expansion. Looks similar to one I have that has great color but never inflates much.

 

[mathias999us]

BLKTANG - Thanks, no prob. I appreciate your help with this.

Thanks everyone. I suspect these may be more difficult to ID because they were just introduced to my tank, and they aren't expanding at all yet? I'm not feeling so bad with my coral ID skills now.

I haven't been able to find a pic of a chalice coral that looks like #2, but I think favia and echino sound like good guesses to me.

Thanks for all of your help - I'll try to post some more pics when (if) they start inflating more after they are settled in.

 

[seapug]

See the resemblance of the corallites on your photo #1 to the ones on this Echinophyllia:

 

[Sheol]

#1 is a Favia sp. Plain & simple, after seeing hundreds of pics & owning some, I know favids when I see "em.
#2 may indeed be an Echinopyllia, not certain on it. Maybe some type of mussid like an Acan???

Sincerely,
Matthew

 

[eran]

favia ,,,,,,,,,,echino

 

[mathias999us]

Cool, thanks for your input everyone. At the very least, I don't feel so bad for not being able to identify them myself. I will followup with more pics if/when they seem to expand more, maybe that will aid in an ID.

Thanks again.

 

[Sheol]

Its cool. Coral IDs, even just generic sometimes, are notoriously difficult.

Matthew