Green soft coral ID

[ihus]

Hi, I started a 10g tank about a year ago, maybe a little more,

ive been buying some corals to put in the tank over the past year,

 

anyway, 5 months ago i manage to find a cheap frag,

I think its a encrustuing montipora,

the frag is fine, but the frag was lodged into a live rock,

the clerck really just got a frag of montipora(i think)

and stuck it to a crack in a live rock.

 

 

i checked the rock before puting it into my tank,

and i saw a green thing growing under that rock 5 months ago,

i thought it was some kind of leather coral back there,

but now that it has more shape...

that green thing was the size of a pinky finger nail 5 months ago,

i forgot to take pictures of the green coral back there,

but now it looks like that.

 

Can someone ID the green coral?

(it looks green under blue LEDs)

Thanks.

[ihus]

I have been trying to find what it is,

and from the pictures i saw online it seems to be some kind of carnation coral...

 

I was going to buy a frag of carnation coral some months ago,

but before buying i made some reading about it and gave up,

mostly because some websites say that carnation coral are non-photosynthetic,

[markalot]

Colt or Carnation coral? If it's bright green all the time then is may be Nepthea, though Nepthea may be a number of other species as well.

[Boggers]

That frag is a monti and looks very bleached out...as for the Softie, most would call it a Kenya tree. They will grow anywhere and even drop an arm in the current to populate a different side of the tank.

 

but colt or carnation is closer to the truth. Kenya gets grouped in most times IMO.

[ihus]

Thanks guys i will try to find more info on the Nepthea and kenya tree,

Im not sure if the montipora is really bleached or is just that color,

its always been that color since i got it, and it doubled in size,

I only have 8500k LEDs, I only got the frag cause it was like 4 bucks.

I should stop buying stuff just cause its cheap u.u

 

but i was really glad to get 2 corals for 4 bucks, even thou it took months

for the green soft coral to get to that size.

 

Thanks guys.

[markalot]

You kept a monti alive, that's something. Give it more blue and less white and see what happens.

[Clown79]

If you upgrade your light you will see a huge difference in the corals colour and growth. The 8500k is will keep them alive but not really provide colour or a lot of growth

 

True carnation corals are expert only, they are very difficult to keep. They need an established tank, lots of plankton, and the average person may keep it alive for 6mnths

 

Thats what a carnation looks like.

[Cnidarious]

Uhh. hmm im not sure.

 

the sparce placement of the polyps makes me think it resembles some kind of sinularia.

Try to disturb the colonies and see how they retract.

If they are fully retractile, meaning the body of the coral remains relatively the same shape, but becomes

more smooth that would make me think its a sinularia or something very much like one.

If they polyps clench into bumps on the branches but the body of the coral shrinks down

thats clue that its probably nephthid coral of some sort like a kenya tree.

this is all speculative though as i am not actually any kind of expert. these are just things

i have been told over time and i have noticed.