Who's baby is it? Id?

[!wrass!]

I know "id this" threads are difficult without good pics so please play along.

Yesterday I found what appears to be a baby coral growing on a power head intake screen. It is in a sheltered area on the end of the screen. I do not have a macro lens, so a good picture is going to be very difficult.

The "baby" is very small, only a couple mm's wide and tall. It deflates during the day and expands at night. It is transparent with only a hint of yellow/orange color. It does have tentacles. Could this be a baby sun polyp or dendro (I have both)? Or is there a medusa stage of something less impressive that would match the description?

I will work on getting more pics. It is the thing between the two thread worms on the bottom side of the screen.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u47/kmcclain1119/DSCN5942.jpg

 

[JetCat USA]

majano.

 

[!wrass!]

Only comes out at night. Majanos are photosynthetic???

 

[stugray]

It could be a sun polyp.

I have one yellow sun polyp colony, and it has reproduced to about 5 other places in the tank.

Stu

 

[billsreef]

Sun polyps have been know to sexually reproduce in tanks and will start out as a single polyp like that. The yellow/orange color is also suggestive of this. The dendro's are also closely related enough that I wouldn't rule them out either. Majano, like aiptasia, would be brown or translucent, not yellow.

 

[!wrass!]

I am hoping for a dendro or sun polyp. It seems to be in a good location for either. It is hanging upside down in a darker area with mild flow. It is too small to feed so it will have to catch items from the water column. If it grows a little more, it will get cyclopeez. Now I wait.......

 

[JetCat USA]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10827869#post10827869 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Majano, like aiptasia, would be brown or translucent, not yellow.

Majano come in all different colors, brown, green, red, etc...........

 

[davidryder]

It could be aiptasia... they range in colors and yellow would certainly not be surprising

www.melevsreef.com/id

You might find something there

 

["Umm fish?"]

It looks like it could be a tubastrea or a dendro but I'm a little worried because I don't see that it's built a corallite wall (anemones don't have them). How long have you had it (it does take a little while for the juvenile polyp to build the wall) and can you see one developing?

Good luck!

 

[!wrass!]

There are a few of things that point to a tubastrea, most likely T. aurea. I am not ready to rule out pests until it grows more.

1: I have one that is health
2: It retracts during the day and expands at night
3: It appears to be retracting into a skeleton, however very small. It is similar to my baby bubble coral skeleton. (rescued from a LFS and only a small amount of tissue survived and is now growing)

I don't really think it is a dendro because mine stays expanded all during the day and night.

I noticed it a few days ago. I had that screen off and scrubbed it a few weeks ago so it is a new arrival.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Hey, !wrass!, I downloaded your photo to see if I could see it better. I cropped and enlarged it and then added some contrast. Do you mind if I post the results?

In the meantime, here's a Tubastrea juvenile:

 

[!wrass!]

Sure you can post the picture. Or you could just tell me...do I nuke it or feed it?

 

[!wrass!]

I played with the image a little and I think I see it. Post yours to confirm please. Man I wish I had a macro lens on a SLR!

 

["Umm fish?"]

Okay, please remember that i was messing with things to try to get as much detail out as I could. The color's waaaaay off.

This is your photo at 200%:

And again at 400%:

It looks to me like I can see a corallite wall in there.

 

[!wrass!]

Yup, I could see it in my picure too. At least I hope that is what it is. As I said before, now I wait. It is kinda cool though.

 

[mikekman]

Looks really cool and if it gets bigger feed it some cyclopeez and take some more pisc and we can nail it down for you. So far I think it looks like a baby sun coral. Do you happen to have a sun coral colony in your tank?

 

[!wrass!]

This is my T. aurea about 3 months ago. Note the T. micrantha on the back of the rock. Both are very health and multiplying rapidly. I wish I could have seen it spawn (if this is a result of sexual reproduction)

I do not have any good pics of my Dendros yet. Major algea problem on the frag disk. I will have to clean it off and shoot them.

 

[PSam]

Baby looks like tubastrea to me. I had one that used to drop 'em like crazy.