ID Help

[craigdon]

This is the best picture I've been able to take.

 

I just noticed this growing in my tank behind some other corals. I can't for the life of me remember ever having something in my tank that looked like this. It's green with purple tips. It's about the size of a nickel right now.

Any ideas of what it could be?

Edited April 3, 2018 by craigdon

[craigdon]

Anyone have any guesses? Unfortunately this is the best picture I’ve been able to get with my phone because of where this coral is positioned in the tank.

[mari.harutunian]

Hard or lps? If lps be a torch or hammer if hard then maybe a pagoda cup?

 

 

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[YHSublime]

It looks like it might be some type of frogspawn, if you're talking about the bottom.

 

Unfortunately, the picture makes it hard to make heads or tails of anything. 

[Jon Lazar]

Sorry, but there's no way to ID the critter from that picture. I know how hard it can be to take a good aquarium picture of some tiny thing.

 

Another way to approach this is by identifying key characteristics that help broadly identify marine life. These are things that you can see much better in person than anyone else can, even with a clear picture. For example:

 

Does it have an underlying skeleton, or is it completely soft tissue? 

Is the skeleton encrusting or is it branching? 

Is it motile? 

Is it radially symmetrical?

Is there a single mouth in the center?

Are there tentacles?  Do the tentacles have nematocysts? 

Are tentacles only around the edge, or are they distributed throughout?

 

There's plenty more questions one could come up with, but this is a good start.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Jon Lazar

[craigdon]

Thanks for the feedback. I tried another picture from the top and it seems like it’s a little clearer.

Right now it’s still pretty small, so it may change as it gets bigger but right now it’s encrusting and it’s all hard. At first I thought it was part of my frog spawn when I first saw it but I ruled that out when I touched it.

Edited April 6, 2018 by craigdon

[YHSublime]

That's much better, does it have a hard disk base? It could be a plate coral!

[Jon Lazar]

Are the polyps hard? Do they have a dimple in the end of each one that might have a hair-like tentacle inside? Could the polyps be the corallites of a very small acropora that hasn't started to branch up?

 

Are the polyps soft (but not the disc-like underlying skeleton) and wavy? Do the polyps retract when irritated? Does the central disc have a central slit-like mouth? That would sound more like a plate coral.

[craigdon]

Thanks for the feedback.

It’s not a plate coral. The only one I had a few years back was yellow and orange.

I’ll just give it a little longer and maybe we can figure it out as it grows.

The most confusing part is that I don’t ever remember having something that looks like this.

[Jon Lazar]

Long-tentacled plate corals look quite different from the "regular" bright orange plate coral.

 

The long tentacled variety can have short, stubby tentacles that look like the ones in your picture. 

 

But identifying the anatomy of the critter is far more useful.

[smh254]

If it’s hard all over then it’s some kind of SPS.

 

 

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[malacoda]

The most confusing part is that I don’t ever remember having something that looks like this.

 

Doesn't have to be 'offspring' of a coral that you intentionally put in your tank in the past.  Could be a completely new type of coral from a planula (i.e. fertilized coral larva) that came in on frag plug, rock, etc. that has just recently begun to grow.  I have an unidentified sps that didn't appear until more than 15 months after I initially put my live rock into my tank ... assuming it came in on the live rock versus another frag.

Edited April 9, 2018 by malacoda