What is this?

[Nixperience]

I was told it was echinata. It is very aggressive and killed 4 acan polyps overnight before I caught it. What the hell is it?

[WV Reefer]

8 minutes ago, Nixperience said:

I was told it was echinata. It is very aggressive and killed 4 acan polyps overnight before I caught it. What the hell is it?

😢 Echinatas are the meanest in the land. 

[M. Tournesol]

Shouldn't Acanthastrea echinata be cool with other Lobophylliidae (Micromussa, Lobophyllia, ...)?

[aclman88]

Echinatas are not compatible with acan lords as you are finsing out... I would have thought the same at first as well.  Check out @jservedio's thread.  His echinata is a beast and it was through his thread I learned that they do not play nice with other coral.

[M. Tournesol]

2 minutes ago, aclman88 said:

Echinatas are not compatible with acan lords as you are finsing out... I would have thought the same at first as well.  Check out @jservedio's thread.  His echinata is a beast and it was through his thread I learned that they do not play nice with other coral.

So acanthastrea Echinatas are only compatible with other acanthastrea 🤔?
(Acanthastrea lordhowensis was reclassified under the Micromussa genus in 2016)

[jservedio]

8 minutes ago, M. Tournesol said:

Shouldn't Acanthastrea echinata be cool with other Lobophylliidae (Micromussa, Lobophyllia, ...)?

No, just because something is in the same family or genus doesn't mean they play nicely. Echinatas aren't cool with anything else except other echinatas. They will attack other species in their own genus, as will many other corals. Even many stereotypically peaceful acros will go to war with other members of their genus, so don't let two corals being in the same genus fool you into thinking they play nicely together.

 

4 minutes ago, aclman88 said:

Echinatas are not compatible with acan lords as you are finsing out... I would have thought the same at first as well.  Check out @jservedio's thread.  His echinata is a beast and it was through his thread I learned that they do not play nice with other coral.

Thanks! The tl;dr of my build thread when it comes to echinatas is just that they are nasty, extremely aggressive, and beautiful. Place them accordingly and you'll be perfectly fine (unless it's a pico).

[Nixperience]

So it is echinata? This is what it did to the acan in the back. It’s no longer near anything and will have more space very soon.  

[jservedio]

Yeah, it's an acan echinata and the amount of damage it did looks about right - both of mine have body counts. As a frag, you can get away with about 3-4" of space and as it get's bigger, you will want more like 5-6" of space. You don't need an exclusion zone around it, you just need to make sure that where it's placed and how your flow is set up that it's sweepers won't be blown into another coral.

 

Here is what I do with one of mine so that it's sweepers can't hit anything. Flow always goes right to left across the sandbed, so you can see that it's sweepers can't be blown into anything - they are trapped between the front glass and the rock with the zoas on it.

 

 

But, they sure are pretty!