Well, that was cool - my rock became a piece of coral

[OneDayMatt]

I bought this rock with the mushroom you see there. Well, yesterday the "rock" started releasing a film like material from the top and exposed what seems to be brownish living tissue! Man was I surprised. Now, if I could get someone's help identifying what kind of coral my "rock" is, I'd like to know. If you look down on the left side you'll see a pretty sweet tube worm too.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[hooterhead]

Looks like some type of encrusting SPS colony. Maye a Porite? What type of lighitng do you have?

 

[MTB]

I 2nd Porites.

 

[OneDayMatt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10261744#post10261744 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hooterhead
Looks like some type of encrusting SPS colony. Maye a Porite? What type of lighitng do you have?

This is the question I thought might come up. I have 4x65W power compacts in a 48" Coralife lunar aqualight. I've been wanting to do SPS, but I would never have bought them with the lights I've got now. I was thinking of going with the Aquactinics solar flare. Anyway, I was surprised that I was bringing some SPS back to life. There's actually another piece with more shrooms on it on the other side of the aquarium. They both come from the same "broken rock" according to the LFS. Broken coral according to me. They're about 14" from the surface, but that's as close as I can get them to the light right now because I don't have enough rock to build that high yet. This is a fairly young (~3mos.) aquarium with just a few fish and a few softies. It looks like my water changes feedings calc dosing and skimming are doing alright for now, but I was pretty excited to see that SPS come alive.

 

[OneDayMatt]

It happened again!!

It happened again!!

So today I come home and one of my corals has 1/4 dead tissue. Dammit, I think, "what am I doing wrong?" Well, I take out my long pinchers to remove the dying material and to my suprise the whole front of the rock moves away from my pinchers! Holy crap, I brought a bivalve back from the dead too. Okay, not dead, but certainly in a deep enough coma to have coral grow over the creature. You can see in the picture that the round flat "rock" is really a shell of some type. I can't really get a side on shot because of the position in the aquarium, but you can see directly below the coral some of the white "tentacles" (I'm not sure of the correct term) that seem to be a part of the beast's body. The front right of th coral is where I had to remove the nearly black dead tissue that was just fine this morning. So, what is this thing I've got here?

 

[OneDayMatt]

bump... What's the animal under my coral?

 

[55semireef]

You would get more responces if you posted this in the reef discussion forum instead of the Tridacnid Clams and other Mollusks forum.

 

[OneDayMatt]

Turns out that this is an oyster. Any tips on keeping it alive besides good flow and phytoplankton?

 

[55semireef]

I don't see any oysters in your pictures.

 

[skippy2]

Do you know what type of oyster? I bought a rock full of hairy mushrooms and found out the rock was actually a jewelbox oyster. I dosed dts to but it only lasted 6 months. They reportedly don't last long in captivity. Good luck with yours.

 

[OneDayMatt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10302860#post10302860 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
I don't see any oysters in your pictures.

Almost the entirety of what you see in the second picture below the yellow leather is an oyster encrusted in coraline algae.