My 65G Shallow Reef Tank

[DiscusHeckel]

Hee hee! Happy to be a bad influence on you!!!:lolspin:

:smurf:

Offering to take your wife to visit her mother to make an acro shopping trip possible is definitely the sign of an acro fiend Bulent............ welcome aboard mate :beer:

Thanks Andrew. Sadly though, the mother in law put a spanner in the works and said that she could not see us :mad2:. I would have loved to see her.

The trip is taking place next Saturday. I cannot see how that pink acro, which was very similar to the one you posted in your tank thread (the one you decided not to buy), will be there until next week. The only hope is that its price is £110. Hopefully, its price will deter people from taking it.

 

[biggles]

I hope you get that acro Bulent, that price isn't for a single frag is it mate :uhoh3:

I'm surprised none of my mates asked why i didn't buy that piece............

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I hope you get that acro Bulent, that price isn't for a single frag is it mate :uhoh3:

I'm surprised none of my mates asked why i didn't buy that piece............

No Andrew. That's the price for the whole colony. If I got a fairly large frag (say a 2"-piece, I would be charged probably £10-£15).

 

[plyle02]

Beautiful fish addition, amazing
The hawkins echinata is not actually an echinata, from what I remember in the day when ORA released it, I remember it was actually a turaki, again if my memory serves me correctly, I would imagine a search on the sps forum would perhaps link it. Either way, you have a beautiful specimen there, the color is spot on. I also love that milli, it is just beautiful, great looking tank

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Beautiful fish addition, amazing
The hawkins echinata is not actually an echinata, from what I remember in the day when ORA released it, I remember it was actually a turaki, again if my memory serves me correctly, I would imagine a search on the sps forum would perhaps link it. Either way, you have a beautiful specimen there, the color is spot on. I also love that milli, it is just beautiful, great looking tank

Thanks for your praise. After Andrew said that that particular coral was Acropora speciosa, it is being referred to as A. speciosa. I like the name. It is a special speciosa...

 

[reefmutt]

I hate to tell you, but I'd bet Dom's firetruck that it isn't speciosa..
Corralites are wrong for speciosa..
I know Andrew thinks he knows everything.. I mean WE think he knows everything.. but I think he got that wrong..
Turaki is my bet..

 

[reefmutt]

I'm going to duck for cover now!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Hee hee. Free cover is provided. Matt, you are under my protection from now on.

Actually, the dealer who sells this particular coral used to market it as Acropora turaki until one day he decided to rename it as "bottle-brush" acropora. He is a marine biologist. I wrote to him and asked for an explanation. This was his reply:

"The bottle brush Acropora advertised is the one we previously called A. turaki. However we are not calling it Turaki any more as I believe it was a misidentification. A turaki we get in from Java, it has slightly larger tubular coralites but is very similar looking but I believe a different species."

I have a very small piece. I might take it out and let it dry, and then take a picture of its skeleton for proper identification. How does this sound?

 

[reefmutt]

No Bulent. Don't remove a piece. We don't need to know that badly..
Anyway, being Canadian, I know the Aussie is wrong but I'm not going to make a big deal about it.
Actually, I have 3 different pieces of speciosa.. I'll shoot them along with my turaki to compare.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

That would be great. In the meantime, I have written to the dealer who supplied me the coral and asked him to express his opinion on Andrew's identification. I will report back.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Hmm. Beautiful shots. I am very privileged to have your coral photos in my tank thread sir. Thank you very much.

It is now Andrew's turn to furnish me with some stunning photos. Thanks in anticipation Andrew.

 

[reefmutt]

Trying something..

Ok! Here goes. I have always found that speciosa gets some pe. And I have found that turaki and echinata get very little.. Some but very little.
Here are my speciosas:
Not great pe but better than I've ever had.

Top:

Another: sorry bad shot..

Top

Last one..

I find that the corralites of speciosa are very squared off from the arm of the coral and sometimes the corralite is sort of cut perpendicular to the arm of the coral..sort of at an angle.. Not sure that makes sense..
And I find the polyps are star shaped and never seem to have that one longer 'finger' extending from the polyp..

Echinata and turaki rarely (for me) get any pe and the corralite tip is always very rounded with a slightly darker tip..
Here's a Hawkins.. Well maybe not, actually, not sure.. But probably echinata.

Here's another echinata (sold to me as echinata)

Here's my turaki. Main body.

Growth tip..


I find that turaki grows more openly in my tank and echinata more densely. But the actual growth tips look very similar.

 

[reefmutt]

I don't understand what is happening. They are on my photobucket account when I go in myself but they aren't there when one accesses it publicly...
Doesn't make sense..
Not sure what to do.. I can't make the links work..
Trying 'direct' instead of image link..
http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/...E-EF39-40EA-8213-B584C488B8E6_zpssdzexw7e.jpg

 

[Henry Colf]

Awesome thread. Love the coral selection and placement.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Awesome thread. Love the coral selection and placement.

Henry,

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[reefmutt]

Ok! Here goes. I have always found that speciosa gets some pe. And I have found that turaki and echinata get very little.. Some but very little.
Here are my speciosas:
Not great pe but better than I've ever had.

Top:

Another: sorry bad shot.. There's a coral growing directly in front of it that gets in the way..

Top

Last one..


I find that the corralites of speciosa are very squared off from the arm of the coral and sometimes the corralite is sort of cut perpendicular to the arm of the coral..sort of at an angle.. Not sure that makes sense..
And I find the polyps are star shaped and never seem to have that one longer 'finger' extending from the polyp..

Echinata and turaki rarely (for me) get any pe and the corralite tip is always very rounded with a slightly darker tip..
Here's a Hawkins.. Well maybe not, actually, not sure.. But probably echinata.

Here's another echinata (sold to me as echinata)

Here's my turaki. Main body.

Growth tip..


I find that turaki grows more openly in my tank and echinata more densely. But the actual growth tips look very similar.

Here's a shot I posted on your thread a few pages back as a comparison between your 'turaki' and mine..


I hope this works..

Bulent, I have a question.. Didn't we have a quick conversation where I posted that I'd re upload the photos and you posted something along the lines of 'thanks that would be great'
Where did those posts go???
Very mysterious..

 

[reefmutt]

Yay.. It worked!! For now..

And just to make things a bit more confusing, here's an old shot of a 'ice fire echinata' that has not grown a mm in a year.. It looks a lot more like speciosa than echinata..

It's branches are even more fine than the speciosa branches.
I'd say that speciosa and the ice fire echinata look pretty close but the turaki is quite distinguishable from speciosa...
Assuming my names for all of the corals I have posted are actually right!:uhoh3:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Bulent, I have a question.. Didn't we have a quick conversation where I posted that I'd re upload the photos and you posted something along the lines of 'thanks that would be great'
Where did those posts go???
Very mysterious..

Pictures are back. Thank you Matt.

I have asked the mods to clean up the thread, including my own posts, as I got too confused. Your previous post with the missing pictures is likely to disappear too.

Hmm. Beautiful shots. I am very privileged to have your coral photos in my tank thread sir. Thank you very much.

My dealer got back to me and decided not to play the ball. His reply was: "there are a few very similar bottle brush Acropora, speciosa is certainly a possibility."

 

[reefmutt]

Solves that mystery..
You are very welcome, Bulent. As I'm sure you are aware, I quite enjoy shooting corals and whenever there is an excuse to put together a bit of info at the same time, all the better!

I just hope my info is accurate.. It's only as informative as it is accurate..

'Bottle brush' is such a general term for so many types of acropora..
Over here, it is more commonly used to name the Fiji Hyacinthus Acro..

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Solves that mystery..
You are very welcome, Bulent. As I'm sure you are aware, I quite enjoy shooting corals and whenever there is an excuse to put together a bit of info at the same time, all the better!

I just hope my info is accurate.. It's only as informative as it is accurate..

'Bottle brush' is such a general term for so many types of acropora..
Over here, it is more commonly used to name the Fiji Hyacinthus Acro..

Thanks again Matt. I appreciate your help.

Here are three close-up shot, which I took with my iPhone. My coral does not extend its polyps drink light hours either. I think my head hurts. I will create a thread in SPS-ID section to confuse some more people. At the end of the day, it really should not matter what it is, but then again because I am a sick person with OCD tendencies, it does matter.... :lmao: