bubble shroom identification

[davinaster]

What is this, please?

 

 

The true color is fluorescent green at the tips and getting a healthy brown (was bleached) on the background.

 

Thanks!

[davinaster]

*bump*

 

Does anyone recognize it?

[yoshiod9]

can you get a better picture of it davina?

[davinaster]

I knew someone was going to say that My "real" camera is indisposed, and I'm using my 4 year old's POS (yeah, she has her own digital camera; it was free, so what the heck...). This pic is the best I can do.

 

It looks most like a bubble coral, except the tentacles aren't round (and of course it's not stony ). They're sort of branched. And the green is actually in dots on the ends of the tentacles.

[davinaster]

I looked at the photo gallery on RC at all of the mushrooms, bubble corals and anemones, and nothing was a match. Again, the closest was the bubble corals. I'm stumped.

[davinaster]

I was taken aback by photos from rbaby's tank a few months ago:

 

 

The small corals on the left (hammers?) look alot like it, but again, as far as I can tell, this guy is a softie.

 

Today I when I spot fed it, it closed right up like a mushroom. I will continue my image search.

[davinaster]

The big tentacles in the middle of this guy look like the ones that are all over mine, but mine has even lengthed tentacles all over.

 

[davinaster]

OK, it looks an awful lot like this frogspawn, but it doesn't have a stoney base. What does frogspawn look like when it's eating?

 

[jenniebutterfly]

it does look like frogspawn, are you sure there is no skeleton? were you able to pick it up off the rocks? sorry i have no pics of my sis in laws eating, but have you fed yours to see what it does?

[yoshiod9]

might be an octobubble coral...but you normally can see it's skeleton. perhaps its from an octobubble that expelled it's polyps for some reason.(is that even possible with bubble corals?)

[davinaster]

It was sold to me as an unmounted shroom. It was this bleached out, shriveled up, smaller than a dime nothing. I did the shot-glass-with-rubble thing, and now it's mounted to a decent sided chunk of rock. I don't remember seeing anything that even could have been a piece of a skeleton. When it eats, it does the whole folding up thing just like a mushroom. *argh* I've gone through almost all the coral images on this forum without finding a match, too.

[inkto]

disturb it slightly with a baster or something and see if it deflates...you'll see a definite head/skeleton if it's a frogspawn. A frogspawn eating looks like a frowspawn with some of the tentacles deflated towards it's mouth/center. Think of a kid with 50 arms waiting for cheerios to float by and then stuffing them in his mouth... uh, just in slow motion... or something. :/

[jenniebutterfly]

oh god, i hate to imagine a kid with 50 arms, it is bad enough when they have 2

[davinaster]

At least this kid is attached to a rock

 

It folds like a mushroom. I seem to have a very rare specimen on my hands! There isn't a picture of another one like it in the gallery on this site or RC (I've looke at them all!)

 

When it gets a little bigger, frags'll start at $100@ j/k

[Kogut]

It looked to me like a green bubble tip anemone when I looked @ it... Just my 2c, though... Good luck figuring out what it is.

[jenniebutterfly]

davina does it kinda look like this? just yours is green. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWA:IT

[davinaster]

Close, but not pointy. But I did find a picture of ricordia that looks awfully close. I was looking very closely at mine and noticed that some of it's tentacles aren't branched. I still haven't seen a mouth, either (but I know it's in there somewhere ) So maybe it's some kind of ricorida?

 

[davinaster]

Oh, as for BTA, I've looked pretty closely at pictures of them, and I don't think the tentacles on this are right. Thanks for the input.

[NCNBilly]

I 2nd the GBTA. Give it some mysis or a silverside and see what it does.

[davinaster]

I gave it mysis yesterday when I spot fed everyone else. It folded up into a ball around it like my other shrooms. I've never had an anemone - how do they eat?

[jenniebutterfly]

the anemone i have closes up around krill like a shroom, but then as soon as it is in it's mouth it opens back up again. not too sure if all anemones do this or not though.

[jenniebutterfly]

here is a pic of the one i have eating

[davinaster]

Hmmm... Maybe it is an anemone? But not a BTA, the tentacles just don't seem to be shaped right.

 

I've got a new camera, but the very, very, *very* best picture I could come up with (out of about a dozen) is this:

 

[reef hugger]

I think it resembles a white tip mushroom. http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Displa...cfm?pCatId=1863

[davinaster]

*ding! ding! ding! ding!*

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! It appears that I have a specimen of the ever rare green tip white tip mushroom Seriously, the picture that joshnemily linked to has the right shape to the tentacle, so I'm satisfied that this is a Rhodactis sp. Now I can get on with the rest of my life.

 

I have to admit that I'm pretty surprised at how rare it does seem to be. I've looked at literally hundreds of photos in the last couple of days without seen another one of these. I'd be interested in knowing how common/rare it actually is.