Favorite coral id help please!

[temet vince]

Hi everyone, it’s been many years and significant life changes (mostly good) and I’m glad to be back in the hobby! 

 

Even better, I was able to convert one of my closest friends who was too in love with his freshwater tanks to give reefing a try. Today he barely talks about his planted tank! 😄

 

Last year he picked up what has to be my favorite coral and we can’t for the life of us figure out what it is. Some sort of montepora. We’re afraid if this dies we won’t be able to find it again.

 

We thought it might be some sort of plate coral but it looks like it’s growing in an encrusting manner over the rock. We had a ridiculous power outage during the coldest day in years here and it died a bit, but it seems to have stabilized and is growing again slowly.

 

Any identification help would be most appreciated!

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

From the last pic, it kinda looks like an acan, but I could be wrong. Maybe a favia? I don’t think that it’s a monti

[Joevember]

It's a chalice coral with its sweepers out. Keep other corals away, the sweepers can reach very far even if it's small. Beautiful piece too 😁

[jservedio]

It's a chalice - from the first pictures looks like a classic "Hollywood Stunner"/"Alien Eye" type. Mine have orange rims around the polyps as well. They are near impossible to kill.

 

As a testament to how hardy they are - I've had this coral for at least 7 years now. I've broken it off and sold it no less than 4 times (a tiny 3-4 polyp chip being the only thing left behind). When I moved to my house 2 years ago and rescaped, I found a tiny 3 polyp piece stuck in a hole, pulled it out, and glued it down entirely bleached. Here it is again, back from the "dead" - exactly the same coral you've got.

 

 

2 hours ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

From the last pic, it kinda looks like an acan, but I could be wrong. Maybe a favia? I don’t think that it’s a monti

It is, without a doubt, some sort of coral :-)

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

It really doesn’t look like a chalice, I have a Hollywood stunner, and it looks nothing like that?

[hyoib]

+1 with some sort of chalice.  It's got an encrusting form, with large/varying size polyps randomly placed over the hard skeleton. I just think it look's odd because it's got it's feeding tentacles out. 

Definitely not an Acan. 

[jservedio]

7 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

It really doesn’t look like a chalice, I have a Hollywood stunner, and it looks nothing like that?

I promise it is. If you put yours in very low light, you'll get the orange rims around the polyps. Mine is sitting in about 30 PAR (see picture above). They can handle far, far more light and will grow blazingly fast under high light (for a chalice) and you can probably turn a 2" frag into an 8" colony in about a year, year and a half under high light. Under low light they grow far more slowly, but you get way better color.

 

A lot of places will jack up the price and call them "Orange Mutant Hollywood Stunners", but it's the same coral.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

18 minutes ago, jservedio said:

I promise it is. If you put yours in very low light, you'll get the orange rims around the polyps. Mine is sitting in about 30 PAR (see picture above). They can handle far, far more light and will grow blazingly fast under high light (for a chalice) and you can probably turn a 2" frag into an 8" colony in about a year, year and a half under high light. Under low light they grow far more slowly, but you get way better color.

 

A lot of places will jack up the price and call them "Orange Mutant Hollywood Stunners", but it's the same coral.

I’ll show you a picture of what mine looks like later tonight, bc it just doesn’t the polyps that are as puffed out as those.

This is what mine looks like

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Mine looks exactly like this. I look on the internet and I see nothing that resembles what you guys are saying?

[makingfilms]

I'm going with Scroll coral. If you look up pictures they have larger eyes like your coral pictured above. I have Never seen a chalice have big eyes like that. Definitely could have been sold as a chalice though 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

1 minute ago, makingfilms said:

I'm going with Scroll coral. If you look up pictures they have larger eyes like your coral pictured above. I have Never seen a chalice have big eyes like that. Definitely could have been sold as a chalice though 

See, that’s what I’m saying. I searched up scroll coral, and it does look like that.

[jservedio]

25 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Mine looks exactly like this. I look on the internet and I see nothing that resembles what you guys are saying?

Here is a picture from 2013 of what was left after I fragged my stunner for the first time to sell it:

 

My picture above is a frag of a frag of a frag of this exact coral from just under 6 years ago. Looks exactly like your picture back then, but slightly bleached because it was under around 250 PAR at the time.

 

Chalices open up their polyps to feed just like all other LPS corals. As with many corals, if you keep feeding them, they will never close up unless you bump them.

 

Edit: Here's another picture of a different frag of this same coral I cut off of the one picture above for my pico in 2014, and it looks different still (upper right):

 

 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

This is a scroll coral sold my saltcritters. It looks like the first few pictures?

[ReefGoat]

1 hour ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I’ll show you a picture of what mine looks like later tonight, bc it just doesn’t the polyps that are as puffed out as those.

This is what mine looks like

 

 

 

 

My stunner looks EXACTLY like this ^ . Plus when the sweeper tentacles are out they are really long. Not short like that one shown in the picture. That the OP posted 

 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

This is weird🤔

[jservedio]

1 hour ago, ReefGoat said:

 

 

 

 

My stunner looks EXACTLY like this ^ . Plus when the sweeper tentacles are out they are really long. Not short like that one shown in the picture. That the OP posted 

 

Look at the 3 pictures I posted - the first one looks identical what OP posted. The 2nd two look like what Ethan posted. They are both the exact same colony, under different lighting conditions over a period of 7 years. The LFS I got mine from still has the exact same monster colony I fragged my original piece from and it looks exactly like the pictures Ethan posted. Hollywood Stunner chalices can look wildly different depending on the tank - all 3 pictures of mine look entirely different, yet they are the same exact coral.

 

Chalices puff up just like any other LPS and their color varies depending on lighting and the individual in question.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

2 hours ago, jservedio said:

Look at the 3 pictures I posted - the first one looks identical what OP posted. The 2nd two look like what Ethan posted. They are both the exact same colony, under different lighting conditions over a period of 7 years. The LFS I got mine from still has the exact same monster colony I fragged my original piece from and it looks exactly like the pictures Ethan posted. Hollywood Stunner chalices can look wildly different depending on the tank - all 3 pictures of mine look entirely different, yet they are the same exact coral.

 

Chalices puff up just like any other LPS and their color varies depending on lighting and the individual in question.

Ok, I’ll believe you🤷‍♂️😂

[temet vince]

Thank you to everyone who commented. My friend and I have had some interesting debates around this coral as well... now it makes more sense. It's just a very dynamic coral!

 

When he bought it, he was told it was an orange "Hollywood Stunner", but as you all demonstrated in this thread, we were also completely unconvinced. Even the shop owner didn't really act she knew what it really was.

I will say, it has some long sweeper tentacles. While not pictured, I've seen it reach out several inches before. For some reason, the tentacles I showed in the picture are much shorter than what I've seen from it occasionally in the past.

I really appreciate everyone's discussion here. I'm inclined to agree with jservedio because he has the most experience with this coral and it sounds like he's seen it look like all sorts of different things! However, my friend's coral has never looked like the Hollywood stunners Ethan posted pictures of, whether in high or low lighting conditions. It's always looked similar to the "mutant orange" Hollywood stunners that jservedio said are the same corals as the regular Hollywood stunners. I can see Ethan's and others concerns, however, given that my friend and I never could find a picture of this coral that looked even remotely like a "regular" Hollywood stunner. We're the furthest you can get from coral experts, however. I mean, I originally thought this was a Montepora! 😄

My limited knowledge about corals tells me all of these Hollywood stunners are probably originally from the exact same colony from the ocean, right? Like once in the trade, it just keeps getting fragged and propagated. Is it possible some frags are more likely to stay open than others, given that it's all from the same colony? We've just never seen it look like a Hollywood stunner, not even in the lfs when he bought it originally. It's been through various tanks and lighting conditions, from one end of the spectrum to the other. While it does change its look over time, it's never really looked like a hollywood stunner.

Thanks everyone, we appreciate your help!

[jservedio]

16 minutes ago, temet vince said:

My limited knowledge about corals tells me all of these Hollywood stunners are probably originally from the exact same colony from the ocean, right? Like once in the trade, it just keeps getting fragged and propagated. Is it possible some frags are more likely to stay open than others, given that it's all from the same colony? We've just never seen it look like a Hollywood stunner, not even in the lfs when he bought it originally. It's been through various tanks and lighting conditions, from one end of the spectrum to the other. While it does change its look over time, it's never really looked like a hollywood stunner.

Sometimes it works this way, but unfortunately there have probably been tens of thousands of these plucked out of the sea and sent all over the world. "Hollywood Stunner" chalices are just the made up hobbyist name for the species Echinopora lamellosa. They come in a wide variety of base and polyp colors and they have a wide variety of polyp sizes and the coloring can change pretty drastically depending on lighting just like all other corals.

 

The good news, is if it came from a fragged colony at an LFS, probably everyone in your area has a frag off of the same mother colony. I know almost everyone in the RDU area here in NC that has a Hollywood Stunner has a piece that came off one monster colony that's been fragged many, many times over at least the last 10 years from the FishRoom in Raleigh. Mine came from there and at least 5 other people in my area have a frag originating from me - so at least sometimes it works the way you describe.

[temet vince]

Interesting. Well that is great news! I'd be really curious to see which stunner colony this would be related to. I believe it was just brought into the shop during a tank breakdown, so the origin is completely unknown. Could even be NC!

Thank you for your help. I've learned a lot.

[Hannahhhh]

On 3/20/2019 at 12:10 PM, jservedio said:

It's a chalice - from the first pictures looks like a classic "Hollywood Stunner"/"Alien Eye" type. Mine have orange rims around the polyps as well. They are near impossible to kill.

 

As a testament to how hardy they are - I've had this coral for at least 7 years now. I've broken it off and sold it no less than 4 times (a tiny 3-4 polyp chip being the only thing left behind). When I moved to my house 2 years ago and rescaped, I found a tiny 3 polyp piece stuck in a hole, pulled it out, and glued it down entirely bleached. Here it is again, back from the "dead" - exactly the same coral you've got.

 

 

It is, without a doubt, some sort of coral 🙂

Hey where did you get that coral and what’s it’s name? I love it, it’s beautiful. I googled Hollywood stunner but the images I’m seeing look nothing like your picture. Thanks!

[jservedio]

16 hours ago, Hannahhhh said:

Hey where did you get that coral and what’s it’s name? I love it, it’s beautiful. I googled Hollywood stunner but the images I’m seeing look nothing like your picture. Thanks!

It's just a regular ol' Hollywood Stunner that's fully colored up with it's polyps wide open. The polyps on mine are always open, except when it's annoyed.

 

Here is as picture of the same colony with it's polyps closed after poking it with a stick to get it to close up - it looks just like all of the other pictures you see online:

 

And with it's polyps open: