Looking for an ID

[NewSchool04]

Anyone have any ideas? It's purple with green base in the shadows and very thin corralites that sometimes wrap around the coral. It also has blue polyps.

Here is a close pic:

Another pic a bit farther away:

 

[dudley moray]

looks like A. horrida

 

[NewSchool04]

Similar but I don't think a match. The corralites are much longer and the polyp extension is different also, the polyps are tiny and don't have that bushy horrida shape to them.

 

[dudley moray]

A. cerealis

 

[NewSchool04]

I don't think so, the growth pattern is totally different. The cerealis grows like a bush while this one has more of a stag like pattern, away from the base with lots of space between the branches.

 

[dudley moray]

A.tortuosa

 

[NewSchool04]

Ha, it's definitely not a tort! Are you just throwing acro names out dudley?

 

[Brian Chong]

maybe this?
http://sdmas.com/corals/902.php

 

[dvanacker]

echinata.....no wait.....tenuis


sorry J/K

these stags are really hard to ID IMO.

 

[dudley moray]

i poured over the sdmas site gave three close resemblances no i'm not just throwing names out there but i did try
http://sdmas.com/corals/34.php
http://sdmas.com/corals/16.php
http://sdmas.com/corals/75.php
have a look at these and tell me if i was in the ball park

 

[NewSchool04]

I got in touch with our local acro expert menard (TOTM and also used to own the best reef store in the mid west) and he gave me two choices. A. horrida (nice one dudley!) and A. vaughani. The final verdict after a couple of back and forth's about the color of the polyps was A. vaughani and that is what I'm going with for whatever that's worth. I still think the corralites look totally different but I'm going to have to accept the experts word!

Thanks for all the help and a special thank you to dudley, I was just joking around but I read my post and it was a bit rude. I apologize.

If you have time, go back and check out menards TOTM a year or so back, it is truly inspiring.

 

[dudley moray]

Thanks for all the help and a special thank you to dudley, I was just joking around but I read my post and it was a bit rude. I apologize.

no need to apologize i was getting frustrated that was a tough one, it has traits from many species. the only thing that was certain was the color
:beer:

 

[dvanacker]

hahaha....I thought it was kinda funny. dudley had some good guesses and some not so good ones but I think people take ID'ing these corals a little to seriously sometimes. It's not easy and sometimes impossible IMO.....so its always best guess.

 

[NewSchool04]

I know, I went through that list at least 5 times and still, I'm not sure of the ID. In my mind it doesn't really look like the coral but what do I know.

I like to know just for the sake of knowing but I think it's all a crap shoot!! Someone is playing a huge trick on us and laughing while we look these things up!