ID Please

[Guest Keyoke]

I've gotten conflicting reports on this one.. I originally thought it was a frogspawn, but the color seems to be off from just about every other frogspawn I've seen, so I'm wondering if this is some sort of hammer?

 

It's growing _WELL_ in my tank. So I don't think it's bleached or dying or anything, it's always been this color.

 

The whole thing:

 

A closeup:

 

 

Also What I thought was GSP, might not be.. maybe some sort of encrusing something or other. Purple fleshy bit, thin metalic green star like fronds. This too is doing extremely well in my tank. When I got it about 4 months ago, it was the size of a standard coaster, now.. well it's grown to about the size of a standard LP record.

 

 

And just for fun, here's the whole tank. Sorry for the ghetto drip system in the lower left, I took a 2.5G water jug and drilled a hole in the spout large enough to fit some airline in.. there's a hole in the top/back of the thing that I use to fill kalk with...

[Folta]

I'm not sure what to tell you, but they do look neat. Glad to hear they are growing as well as they are!

[xeon]

I think you have the two ID'd correctly. Your GSP's look like the one's I have FWIW, purple flesh and all. Your frogspawn also looks like one of the frogspawns that I have. I think I have three different color variations of frogspawn. Check out frogspawn on frags.org, you will probably see the various color variations.

[reelsteel]

Yep looks like frogspawn and GSP. You can frag the frogspawn by breaking off the branches at the V's. The GSP will spread to surrounding rocks and walls of your tank, so if you don't want that to happen make sure the rock is away from the other rocks and sides of your tank. You can make a little island out of the GSP.

Good Luck

Doug

[JMsAquarium]

Yes it's a GSP, I have the very same one. As for the frogspawn it is one as well, nice specimen BTW.

[rocko918]

I am not sure that is GPS.

 

encrusing monti??

 

Gav (Phil) will chime in. He knows what that is called.

[Grav]

I heard my name, it's like the GRAV Signal.

 

Rocko is thinking of what was introduced to me as encrusting gorgans at the frag fest last fall. I've got it in green (very similar to GSPs) and a tan chocolate color.

 

With the green ones I've found it very hard to tell them apart from GSPs unless they are right next to each other, which is why I have them right next to each other in my tank. The only suggestion I can make is that the gorgans seem to grow faster than GSPs, are a little more "wavy" and they don't dissapear as much as GSPs when they contract.

 

I should take a pic of them side by side.

[rocko918]

doesn't GPS have a white dot in the middle?

 

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/pr...oot_parent_id=4

[Sugar Magnolia]

FWIW, pachyclavularia (GSP/star polyps) and Briareum (encrusting gorgonian) are very similar in growth habits. Pachyclavularia tends to have a purple mat where briareum's mat is more of a creamy grey color.

[Guest Keyoke]

In looking at them, a GSP seems to have thicker/brighter colors and a white spot in the middle (as pointed out), while what I've got appears to have a thinner "finger" than the garden variety GSP that I see in most stores and websites.

 

I wish I had a better camera able to take a closer pic than what I already provided, but I can't think of a way to get a better shot...

 

-jeff

[Guest mightymouse]

it looks like an encrusting gorgonian to me i have one of these in my tank and yours looks just like mine but when you said the prple mat it led me to believe its gsp i am pretty sure its gsp but im not sure someone else needs to chime in on this but doesnt gsp have a different number of fingers or whatever on each polyp than an encrusting gorgonian if im not mistaken gsp have 6 and i dont know how many the gorgonians do but like i said someone else needs to chime in on this one

[pez]

I don't think your picture is GSP. There has been some reclassification going on in that area, so I don't know what the current scientific name is. Sugar is probably right with the pachyclavularia or briareum. Might be Erythropodium as well.

 

I had some in my tank for a while and it took over. Seemed to like high levels of iodine. Since it reproduced sexually a number of times, Eric Borneman is now the proud owner of it.

 

As for the "frog spawn", both hammer corals and frag spawn are Euphyllia of some type. Looks like you have E. divsa or some hybrid between E. Divsa and E. ancora.

 

-Tom