Photo id's of more uncommon Dendrophylliidae?

[psykokid]

I found this link that has a listing of all the various Dendrophylliidae species:

http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=135074

Im looking to nail some id's on a few pieces. I've noticed that most of the common Tubastrea sp pieces that are found in the hobby tend have short densely packed coralites (aurea, coccinea, faulkneri). The exception tends to be T. micranthus which has a longer branching structure. The other commonality between these is that the edge of the "cup" tends to be very even.

I picked up one piece from a guy about a year ago that he was calling a sun coral that had more of a branching growth structure and the edge of the coralite tended to very jagged. Looked like this photo i found in this older post:

This coral never really did all that well. I had it next to a colony of T. aurea that i had gotten some time back that was doing really well and thriving. I fed both daily, the aurea did well always opening and eating while the other would occasionally open and eat. It slowly withered away to dam near nothing. I kept the skeleton since there was a little flesh in spots and tucked it back into a corner of my tank. It has since budded a few polyps here and there which seem to be out most of the time.

Recently i picked up two pieces that were rescues that i'm going to try and nurse back to good health and get to thrive. The first piece looks identical to the one that i had before that wasted away that was identified in the old thread as Cladopsammia gracilis. The other has a similar structure but has a much more orange flesh. I bucket fed both last night and started to get some swelling of the polyp ends showing at least some response to feeding.

Anyhow, id like to get more photos and id's of the oddballs that show up in the hobby from time to time so that people have a better idea what they have instead of blindly calling anything that is non photosynthetic and has cup shaped coralites a sun coral..

I'll post photos of the rescues later this evening when i get my tripod back..

 

[uhuru]

I have one very similar to the one pictured. It is a beautiful color when it does open, more brilliant pink compared to the common tubastrea and with finer yellow polyps, but yes it does seem to have somewhat different requirements. I have been working with it for about a year now and I lost at least 50% of the polyps while it was in a holding sump, even with daily feedings of mysis and pellets. Recently I added it to my ADA tank and with the continuous feedings of small zooplankton it is looking better than ever. I'm thinking that this one requires frequent small feedings. I'll try to take a pic in a couple of days. I did find a crab that hides around it and steals larger food like mysis from it, but the crab doesn't seem to steal smaller foods.

 

[slapshot]

I have one very similar to the one pictured. It is a beautiful color when it does open, more brilliant pink compared to the common tubastrea and with finer yellow polyps, but yes it does seem to have somewhat different requirements. I have been working with it for about a year now and I lost at least 50% of the polyps while it was in a holding sump, even with daily feedings of mysis and pellets. Recently I added it to my ADA tank and with the continuous feedings of small zooplankton it is looking better than ever. I'm thinking that this one requires frequent small feedings. I'll try to take a pic in a couple of days. I did find a crab that hides around it and steals larger food like mysis from it, but the crab doesn't seem to steal smaller foods.

Ditto!

 

[GoingPostal]

Both I and a friend had small frags of a similar sun coral, we had a hard time getting it to open and even with feeding our frags died within months. Have to see later if I still have a pic of it around.

 

[psykokid]

I picked up two colonies from a friend and they are responding to bucket feeding quite well atm..