Can rainbow acans be kept with other acans?

Ranjib · Jan 19, 2018

I have a rainbow acan, that I believe has stung and killed other acans near by. But I am not quite sure, I used to think acans can be kept together. This happened few months back, so I dont have any recent pictures, i can share the recent photos of the rainbow acans, and some old photos of the now-dead acans. They died once I moved them close to the rainbow acan.

aresangel · Jan 19, 2018

Were they they same species? I know the echinata scans can be successfully grafted (Justin Credable has done this). I believe if they are the same societies they could be together. If the head sizes were the same I would think they would be fine but I may be wrong.

I will leave that open to any acan lords out there!

Ranjib · Jan 19, 2018

aresangel said:
Were they they same species? I know the echinata scans can be successfully grafted (Justin Credable has done this). I believe if they are the same societies they could be together. If the head sizes were the same I would think they would be fine but I may be wrong.

I will leave that open to any acan lords out there!

I dont know about their lineage. But rainbow acans look significantly different than other acans. In fact for a long time i had struggled to identify it as acan. I am still relying on this image from a vendor: https://www.omegacoral.com/product-page/ultra-rainbow-acanthastrea-echinata-colony

My initial guess is the dead ones are acan lord, while the rainbow is acan brain

aresangel · Jan 19, 2018

Ok so the picture you have linked above is acan enchinata. More like an encrusted and the flesh stays close to the skeleton. The other Acans have been recently reclassified. I know there is acanophylla which is the larger brain style, then acan lord is the large polyps about an inch-1.5 inches in diameter. Then there are your dead ones which probably have smaller heads about the size of a dime-nickle. Those are micromussa lords.

I know they have been shuffling their classification and scientific names around for some of them so I am not sure how up to date my memory is!

Jimbo662 · Jan 19, 2018

Acan echinata's will usually sting acan lords.

Ranjib · Jan 19, 2018

aresangel said:
Ok so the picture you have linked above is acan enchinata. More like an encrusted and the flesh stays close to the skeleton. The other Acans have been recently reclassified. I know there is acanophylla which is the larger brain style, then acan lord is the large polyps about an inch-1.5 inches in diameter. Then there are your dead ones which probably have smaller heads about the size of a dime-nickle. Those are micromussa lords.

I know they have been shuffling their classification and scientific names around for some of them so I am not sure how up to date my memory is!

Thank you, very helpful.