What sps is this

[Xj reefing]

A while ago I bought a cheap sps frag it had green around the edges under uv light then it lost the green and went brown for a while a couple of weeks ago it started getting a lot of colour what the hell is this?

[Tired]

Doesn't look like an SPS. Can you get a clear picture under whiter light? And how big are each of those circular polyps? It looks to me like an LPS of some sort, maybe a favia or acan with some feeding tentacles out. 

 

It's really pretty, whatever it is. All those patterns. Lots of exposed skeleton, though, that's not the best sign. Looks like it's been exposed a long time, though, so probably old damage. 

[Xj reefing]

Hi it is definitely a sps at least that is what the owner at my lfs said when he sold it to me. The polyps are around half a centimetre to 1 centimetre and yes that is very old damage it was expose before I got it but it was such a good deal I got it. I will get some white light pictures tonight when feeding the fish.

[Tired]

That's not a SPS. SPS means "small-polyped stony", and is a general term for corals that fit a certain pattern of growth and shape. One of the big identifiers of a SPS is that it has very small polyps. If it's a stony coral with larger polyps, it's a LPS, large-polyped stony. Cyphastrea is right in the middle, considered LPS by some people and SPS by others, and its polyps are at most half a centimeter across. If yours has some one-centimeter polyps, it is absolutely not an SPS. The fleshiness of the polyps, and the extended feeding tentacles, also point to it being LPS. 

 

[Xj reefing]

There are no extended feeding tenticals

[Xj reefing]

I just had another look under whites and I realised that most of them are Half a centimetre (oops my bad). 

[Tired]

These look like feeding tentacles to me. Do they stick out from the mouth, or the disc? Either way, those polyps still look much too fleshy to be SPS polyps. 

 

 

This is a picture of an encrusting montipora frag I own.. It's a pretty typical SPS in terms of polyp size, and its polyps are about 1-2mm across. You can see they're quite small, and they aren't fleshy to the appearance at all. The polyps don't touch each other even when fully extended. 

 

This is a picture I stole from online, of a blastomussa coral. I'm not saying this is definitely what you have, but the polyps of your coral are much, much more similar to this than to the monti. You can see they appear fleshy and soft, and touch each other over the skeleton. I would take a guess that you have a LPS coral that was damaged by something, and is now regrowing tiny baby polyps. It's still a good find, and the colors are really nice, but that's not an SPS. 

 

 

Edit: this looks almost right, but the polyp shape is a bit different. Another online pic, this time a pagoda cup coral. It may be worth looking at pictures of them. I can't find any pics with such colorful polyps, but they're close. This one is usually considered a LPS, but a few people do seem to call them SPS. 

 

 

[MrP]

Look up photos of Leptastrea and see if that is similar to what you have. It's hard to tell in your photos but Leptastrea would be my guess.

[mcarroll]

all good guesses based on the pic, imo

 

need better pic 😉 

[Tired]

Is the coral firmly attached to the rockwork? If not, you could gently pick it up and slowly move it so that it's an inch or so below the surface of the water. If done gently, it wouldn't make the coral close up too much, and shutting off the pumps beforehand might allow for a nice, clear pic. Or a top-down pic of it, where it is now, could possibly work if it's not too deep in the tank.