Never seen one like this

[Tab28]

Picked this up today at coral con. When i saw it at a distance i thought it was a paltygyra. Once i was closer i saw what i thought were the corallite ridges were actually kinda like polyp nodules. It has several mouths random centered in the green areas.

The guy who sold me the frag said he bought it as a favia. It does have some favia qualities so may be in the favia family.

this is it closed

closeup of tentacle nodules

 

[bichirfreak]

That is cool

 

[johnanddawn]

Galaxea maybe ?

 

[Tab28]

Not a galaxea. I had a large one for years. This has no corallites around the mouths. The seller bought the mother colony and fragged it. Said it grew just like a favia in habit. Just does not look like a favia.

 

[Dr.Reefgood]

Do you remember which vendor it was? Just curious.

 

[SeeingGreen]

Hydnaphora?

 

[Tab28]

Do you remember which vendor it was? Just curious.

Off hand no. It was from one here in orlando area though.

 

[Tab28]

Hydnaphora?

Had a colony of that and it is not it. It is a LPS.

It creates its own skeleton from appearance and what the vendor told me so not an encruster. I wanted something different and this fits the bill.

You can see one of the mouths on the left side of coral in green area. There does not seem to be any mouths on the brown area. They look to be small brown islands with tentacle nodules around the perimeter. These areas are also not raised like corallites.

 

[JenB]

It's a vendor in the Kissimmee area - we actually drove out to see it one day. I'll let you know if I remember the name

 

[JenB]

Exotic Fish & Reef Imports

 

[Tab28]

It's a vendor in the Kissimmee area - we actually drove out to see it one day. I'll let you know if I remember the name

Checked my receipt and the vendor i got it from was from seminole county. He did say he got his from another vendor that was at the show. So if exotic was there it very well may have come from them.

I checked their site. Only a few zoas are shown. However in the wysiwyg link. It does look as though one of the three pictures on slide show does look like the coral. Picture looks green base with blue nodules but the picture is blue lighting, so colors will be off. But looks like same coral. That is the closest i have come to ID, thanks.

 

[mainereefer]

looks like platygyra to me

 

[evolved]

encrusting hydnophora

 

[Tab28]

encrusting hydnophora

I really hope not. I googled it and some look like a maybe but i had one and the tentacles were more dense and not as large. These tentacles look like small pearls. Similar to what you find it on some mushrooms. They also do not encircle the mouths. I feed it last night and it puffed out like a LPS and ate mysis shrimp.

 

[evolved]

Hydnophora exesa

 

[Tab28]

Ugh every time i look at this coral now i think you are correct. I wish you were not but you are generally correct about these things evolved. To give props SeeingGreen also made the call. It seems the encrusting type varies in appearance from the standard variety i had for years. It was the only thing that killed pandoras. After i read the article stating "unlike other sps corals the exesa can inflate its flesh and eat meaty foods", I must agree. Didn't want a hydnophora again and an encrusting one to boot. Bought it as a unknown favia type.