ID please - encrusting gorgonian/xenia

[ebin]

actually yes that is it I spent 2 years coming to this site posting , chatting, participating in a contest...only to come out of some creepy troll closet in your dying xenia thread

 

 

you asked i answered. next time i will sugar coat things as to not make you sad. (epsi would have made you slit your wrists.)

 

 

joe i am still waiting on the educated scientific stuff you learned with that degree.

[SaltwaterGoldfish?]

Or a classic case of under-reading. Die off between pic to pic? There are three time-frames in the pics I have posted, and they are not in order. How you came to your conclusion I have no idea. I suppose that you are trying to insinuate that I have a poorly maintained tank and that I am killing my corals.

 

This is not, and never has been a xenia.

 

Saltwatergoldfish, I guess what I gather from your post is that my coral is neither Erythropodium caribbaeorum or Briareum asbestinum as it is not brown and when the polyps are closed up they appear to be slightly lighter than the rest of the body.

Are you just trolling now? I was enjoying this conversation until I realized that you were ignoring everything I say.

 

Im getting tired of this. Thanks to all those that helped clear things up, Im now confident of my original identification. Goldfish, it's doubtful that we'll be able to attach a species tag to this but thanks for trying

 

J. sprung again...

 

"Although only one species, Briareum asbestinum, is recorded in the Caribbean, it seems to be a highly variable species, or there seem to be at least two or three undescribed species. One form, which is most common on offshore reefs, is upright with long smooth straight branches attached to a flat base. Other forms are encrusting, and may be smooth or with projecting calyces. The polyps are brown and may or may not have white centers and a white line down the midrib of each pinnate tentacle. The different polyp forms are so different that they seem like different species, in much the same way that different forms of Tubipora musica in the Indo-Pacific appear to be different species. Briareum spp. brood their larvae on the surface of the colony."

 

... sounds like Briareum has quite a bit of variation in it... these are the joys of invertebrate taxonomy

 

Cheers,

Joe

[SaltwaterGoldfish?]

actually yes that is it I spent 2 years coming to this site posting , chatting, participating in a contest...only to come out of some creepy troll closet in your dying xenia thread

you asked i answered. next time i will sugar coat things as to not make you sad. (epsi would have made you slit your wrists.)

joe i am still waiting on the educated scientific stuff you learned with that degree.

 

woe to thee who upsets the overly anal systematist...

 

To seperate Xeniids from Briareids one must check the coenochyme for a layered differentiation... in gorgonians there is often a central axis made with the unique protein gorgonin (amongst other substances)... these are nice and easy to ID, but not so in the encrusting forms... therefore you have to check for a bilayered structure in the coenochyme... the bottom layer is called the medulla (and in Briareids is composed of unfused, densely-packed sclerites), the upper layer is called the cortex... and fyi, the coenochyme is the stuff between the polyps

 

it should be noted that the "gorgonians" are usually included in recent classifications of the Order Alcyonacea... that is to say, in a broad sense these are all similar animals and misidentifying the aberrant growth forms in our discussion is very easy to do... but as previously mentioned, an easier method of differentiating these is to use behavioral responses to stimuli... that is to say, Xeniids tend to curl up into little polyp balls whereas gorgonians tend to withdraw completely... also, you should be able to tell by texture; Xeniids are soft & slimy to the touch... gorgonians, not so much

 

Cheers to all,

Joe

[ebin]

saltwatergoldfish

glad to see your degree in invertebrate zoology with a focus on systematics landed you that fish dept manager at the petstore. did you get clown shoes and a squeaky nose with that degree.

Your posts don't show much proof of product. (I.E. your getting me to believe you hold even a highschool degree or have much reefing experience is slim to none.)

 

I'll cheers you to that.

 

speaking of cheers wheres fred been i miss him.

[SaltwaterGoldfish?]

saltwatergoldfish

glad to see your degree in invertebrate zoology with a focus on systematics landed you that fish dept manager at the petstore. did you get clown shoes and a squeaky nose with that degree.

Your posts don't show much proof of product. (I.E. your getting me to believe you hold even a highschool degree or have much reefing experience is slim to none.)

 

I'll cheers you to that.

 

speaking of cheers wheres fred been i miss him.

 

wow... a personal attack in the invertebrate identification forum... cheers to you my friend... tell ya what... when I'm TAing at grad school this fall you can come sit in on my class

[neanderthalman]

No worries Ebin, Fred's still around, but not as much as before. I believe he was on a "forced sabbatical" from NR for a while and no longer posts here as much.

[FloorLord]

dude, change your stocking list. (SalwaterGoldfish) no one calls any of that stuff by it's scientific name.

Do you think none of us can search your other posts? lol. You got P'wned. gotta tell you, I love your "ordering livestock" threads, especially The Great Peppermint Shrimp Price Thread!

D

[CGNano]

That is xenia not an encrusting gorgonian.

[SaltwaterGoldfish?]

dude, change your stocking list. (SalwaterGoldfish) no one calls any of that stuff by it's scientific name.

Do you think none of us can search your other posts? lol. You got P'wned. gotta tell you, I love your "ordering livestock" threads, especially The Great Peppermint Shrimp Price Thread!

D

 

I always thought it was silly to maintain these complex marine ecosystems and then just make up silly names for the organisms therein... if we're gonna play like scientists we could at least talk like 'em too... and besides, 'Platyhelminthes' rolls off the tongue... far more mellifluously than a mere 'flatworm'...

[FloorLord]

I always thought it was silly to maintain these complex marine ecosystems and then just make up silly names for the organisms therein... if we're gonna play like scientists we could at least talk like 'em too... and besides, 'Platyhelminthes' rolls off the tongue... far more mellifluously than a mere 'flatworm'...

 

true. cool philosophy. I can respect that. Props to you vocab, BTW.

it just reminds me of like...

"dude, I just got a new Canus Lupis, wanna come over, with some of your fellow Homo Sapiens?" lol

D

[Hokie03]

Wow, this makes me think of a 12 year old sitting in the computer room during recess getting all ###ed off because someone called their percula an ocellaris (no offense to those of you who are actually posting sensical replies)...entertaining none the less.

 

I'm sure my opinion won't count because I have not been a NR member for a decade and I have less than 4,567 posts, which clearly identifies me as having the knowledge of a Petco aquatics section employee. Regardless, here's my two cents...

 

I have xenia in my tank, and I agree the pic of the polyps open does look just like xenia, except for a few points. I have never seen xenia with an encrusting base like the pic shows. I have only seen stalks that may fuse with others, but you can clearly see the difference. Second, the pictures of the polyps closed. My xenia, which did go through a few days of near death experience, never closes like Angry Monkey's. My xenia balls up and pulls close to the stalk, looks like brocolli. When it was dying it shriveled and thinned out, lost color and sagged, it did not suck up into the stalk. So, while I can't spit out any latin identification nor verify wether it's EG or not, I am sure it does not look like ANY xenia I have ever seen.

[Stevej72]

thats 20 min. of my life I'll never get any use of.

[c est ma]

dude, change your stocking list. (SalwaterGoldfish) no one calls any of that stuff by it's scientific name.

 

Well, but we do! Frequently just to genus, not species, level, but Xenia, Ricordea (florida & yuma), Blastomussa, Porites, yada, yada, yada--all these are scientific names. Just about every coral and coral-like creature we have is called by at least some part of its scientific name...

 

Widely accepted common names can be helpful but since there's no governing body to declare which common name goes with which particular organism it can also be very confusing. "Plate coral," for example, can refer to both fungiids and montoporids, two very dissimilar families of corals.

 

Unfortunately, most people acquire an aversion to scientific taxonomy for one reason or another. One of the beauties of this hobby is that people end up using it routinely without even realizing it, as in many cases common names don't even exist for some of our specimens.

 

--Diane

[FloorLord]

Well, but we do! Frequently just to genus, not species, level, but Xenia, Ricordea (florida & yuma), Blastomussa, Porites, yada, yada, yada--all these are scientific names. Just about every coral and coral-like creature we have is called by at least some part of its scientific name...

 

Widely accepted common names can be helpful but since there's no governing body to declare which common name goes with which particular organism it can also be very confusing. "Plate coral," for example, can refer to both fungiids and montoporids, two very dissimilar families of corals.

 

Unfortunately, most people acquire an aversion to scientific taxonomy for one reason or another. One of the beauties of this hobby is that people end up using it routinely without even realizing it, as in many cases common names don't even exist for some of our specimens.

 

--Diane

 

I agree. But that "some part" of it, is alot more widely recognized. Why even put it in there, (sig area) if you don't want people to be curious, and actually know what is in your system.

Especially with fish, inverts, etc.

12g Aquapod: filled with a bunch of critters... lol, much better! hehe

D

D

[c est ma]

"12g Aquapod: filled with a bunch of critters... lol, much better! hehe"

 

LOL!

 

Plus, that would cover all my flatworms & other hitchers, desirable and not.

 

--Diane

[Angry-Monkey]

I have xenia in my tank, and I agree the pic of the polyps open does look just like xenia, except for a few points. I have never seen xenia with an encrusting base like the pic shows. I have only seen stalks that may fuse with others, but you can clearly see the difference. Second, the pictures of the polyps closed. My xenia, which did go through a few days of near death experience, never closes like Angry Monkey's. My xenia balls up and pulls close to the stalk, looks like brocolli. When it was dying it shriveled and thinned out, lost color and sagged, it did not suck up into the stalk. So, while I can't spit out any latin identification nor verify wether it's EG or not, I am sure it does not look like ANY xenia I have ever seen.

 

 

I didn't like the way the thread degenerated either. All I wanted was some feedback on an opinion.

 

I'd just like to point out that it closes up like that every night when the lights turn off and comes back out looking nice and healthy in the morning. The sucked in knobs have nothing to do with it being on its way out.

 

Thanks for your comments.