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mystery coral


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I picked this up off a hobbiest who claimed it was an xenia. It has the color of a pipe organ but isn't growing a hard skeleton. It grows like waving xenia as it is spreading soft flesh across the live rock. It has doubled in size in roughly 2 months

 

Any idea?

 

Thanks

Tim

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Thanks guys

 

I had originally written off star polyps because I hadn't seen any extend this far out and most pictures didn't match. Hadn't thought much of it being a clove because all the ones I find are growing as separate stalks.

 

There is one picture I've found which is identical and it's labeled as a daisy polyp but all other pictures of daisy polyps look very different.

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CoolNameGoesHere

looks like green encrusting gorgonian to me. gets easily confused with gsp bc they look similar. but encrusting gorgonian has longer extending polyps and is more "flow-y" than gsp.

 

grows like a weed so be careful where you place it. it's a pain if you lose control of it.

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I hadnt researched any encrusted gorgonian. Thanks for the heads up, i look into them. It definitely is starting to grow and spread very quickly.

 

Any cloves I've seen when irritated retract it's polyp into an elongated "stalk". When this coral gets irritated it shrinks down into a small bump as you can see in picture 4.

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looks like green encrusting gorgonian to me. gets easily confused with gsp bc they look similar. but encrusting gorgonian has longer extending polyps and is more "flow-y" than gsp.

 

grows like a weed so be careful where you place it. it's a pain if you lose control of it.

I believe they're actually all the same family if I'm not mistaken.. xenidae or whatever..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks guys I had originally written off star polyps because I hadn't seen any extend this far out and most pictures didn't match. Hadn't thought much of it being a clove because all the ones I find are growing as separate stalks. There is one picture I've found which is identical and it's labeled as a daisy polyp but all other pictures of daisy polyps look very different.

I've got some brown/purple star polyps that are long and flowy just like that, but the polyps' tentacles look more like xenia on your pics..

 

kinda looks like waving hand..

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That's what I thought regarding the feathery tenticles looking similar to waving hand xenia.

 

The owner claimed he had bought the original frag about 20 years ago and the frag i bought was all that remained after a recent system crash.

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CoolNameGoesHere

I think it's in the briareum family. Dunno if that's related to xenidae somewhere in the family tree or not. I have some and it looks just like that. Same pale purple mat that spreads everywhere. No stalks, just nubs when retracted.

 

I'm fairly positive it's not a clove polyp or xenia, but then I'm just a hobbyist, not a scientist- what do I know.

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That's great thanks for shedding some light on this mystery coral guys. With the way it's spreading I'll be fragging it in the near future and don't want to give it a false name.

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