Unknown coral

[cloak]

Just curious if anybody knows what kind of sps coral this is. It's kind of a pinkish beige color with yellow polyps. My LFS has some nice frags for $10, but I just need to find out a little bit more about the coral before I pull the trigger. Thanks.

 

[markalot]

It's a montipora of some sort, capitata or similar would be my guess.

 

[Ken Hahn]

Looks like Montipora stellata to me.

 

[cloak]

If either of the two guesses above are correct, do these require any special requirements as opposed to a Montipora capricornis or a digitata? Do these like super duper bright light and a lot of chaotic flow, or are they pretty easy to keep? Thanks.

 

[Ken Hahn]

Does it look similar to this? If so, that is the 'Tubs' M. stellata.

They can handle moderate to strong lighting. Under strong lighting the base color turns blue with green polyps as in this picture. Under lower light levels they are more of a brown color.

 

[cloak]

Yeah, actually it does. I don't know how big the tank was at my LFS, but they had two Kessil 350's over it and it was about 2/3 of the way down. It definitely could have been placed closer to the light. (hence the blue coloration you spoke of)

Do these things tend to encrust over the rocks or branch out more? I don't really have any room on my rock structure, but I might just glue it to the back glass right up under the MH and see what happens.

 

[Ken Hahn]

That is pretty weak lighting for this coral, so color is probably fairly poor. They can handle quite a bit of light, but you'll want to acclimate it a bit if going to much stronger light as would be the case with any SPS coral.

They encrust somewhat, but most growth is upwards in a random branching fashion. Not sure how that will do on the back wall, but you can give it a shot.

http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0274