Coral for identification

[zxcs]

Hi! Can anyone please identify this coral for me? It came as a hitchhiker with some Zoas and seems to be doing really well. There were just two small polyps about six weeks ago, they have greatly increased in size since with lots of new polyps growing around them. I'm new to keeping coral and not very good at identifying them. I feel like it's something common and I've seen it before but after lots of online searching I couldn't find anything that looks similar. Initially I thought it was a duncan but not anymore.

If you know what it is - should I let it remain on the same rock as my Zoa colony or will it eventually kill them? The option for separating them would be to break the rock in half.

Thanks!

 

[Cheezle]

They remind me of the captain jerk palys that are all over my LFS frag tank. Got any more pics of them?

 

[DeniseAndy]

Palythoa. If they are brownish and may glow slightly green under blue lights, get rid of them. They are very aggressive and invasive. Also, be very careful when getting rid of them. Use gloves, mask, goggles, and do not have open cuts. These guys are toxic.

 

[Matt Bravo]

Yeah definitely not LPS look more like palys

 

[zxcs]

Palythoa. If they are brownish and may glow slightly green under blue lights, get rid of them. They are very aggressive and invasive. Also, be very careful when getting rid of them. Use gloves, mask, goggles, and do not have open cuts. These guys are toxic.

Thank you! They are exactly as you described, brown under normal light and glowing green under actinic light.

I'm currently working on moving the few coral I have to a smaller reef tank and keeping non-reef safe fish and inverts in the current tank. Is there any harm in letting the palythoas remain in this tank? Inhabitants will include a ribbon eel, red knob starfish and cleaner shrimp. I may also add some butterflyfish later on. Don't mind the palythoas being nipped at but will they harm the tank inhabitants?

 

[blecki]

Common button polyps, aka palys.

The Dangers (and Myths) of Zoa Toxicity – Part 1

The oceans are full of creatures capable of killing us; one of the more surprising marine menaces is a group of popular aquarium corals known variably as “but

reefs.com

I think these are cf mutaki and thus relatively safe; but you probably shouldn't trust the word of internet stranger with your life. Either way it always seems that the uglier the paly, the faster it spreads (Maybe because having more zooxanthellae makes them brown and makes them able to grow faster?) so unless you want a lot of them...

 

[blecki]

Don't mind the palythoas being nipped at but will they harm the tank inhabitants?

The fish will learn the lesson. The starfish might eat them all and die, might eat them all and be fine.

 

[DeniseAndy]

No harm if you do not mind a tank full of them in months. They grow fast and kill everything else. Plus, if they do get crazy, be careful, as stated, in removing them. Personally, I would take that rock out and get rid of the part with those palys. I had tank with them covered and had to basically tear it down. I suffered two paly toxin issues while trying to eradicate them. If they are the same as I had. Just be safe.

 

[prodbot7]

Agree with everyone else; they spread fast and can overwhelm tanks…. I wouldn’t be so worried about things eating them but, if you want to have more control over the aesthetics of the tank, I’d get rid of them. I recently went through the hassle of removing Mohawk Zoas that were overwhelming my zoa garden and, after multiple failed attempts to remove them with a scalpel from the rock, used aptasia-x on the polyps (as you would greet aptasia) and was able to eradicate the unwanted Zoas without harming the others and without risking palythoa toxin exposure (I actually had a friend have a very bad reaction to the toxin and it wasn’t pretty)