Help IDing Tiny Hitchhiker Frag... Elegance?

[FlyinAg]

This tiny frag was on a spiderman zoa colony I bought. It was getting encroached upon by a sponge and the zoas so I cut the frag off to be by itself. It has really colored up and increased in size. I originally thought it was a tiny acan or blasto, but now it doesn't look as such. It rimmed with tentacles that are always out, and looks like it has 2 mouths on some polyps. The second picture shows an acan frag for scale. Is it an elegance? Sorry my phone takes crappy tank pics. Thanks!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks like acan bowerbanki but pics a. Little dark to confirm

 

[FlyinAg]

Trying for a better pic... I know someone is going to think zoas, but they definitely aren't that... They don't close like zoas and dont have a stalk. The tentacles don't retract so seems to rule out an acan? They are brilliantly blue-green florescent under UV light.

 

[thamnasteroid]

Looks like acan bowerbanki but pics a. Little dark to confirm

Corallites too small to be bowerbanki. Also, it’s Homophyllia bowerbanki, not acan. @FlyinAg Does it have a stony skeleton? Is its tentacles always out? I see acrospheres on the tentacles, which rules out everything except corallimorphs stony corals. It also looks to be colonial, which means it is most likely a stony coral.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Corallites too small to be bowerbanki. Also, it’s Homophyllia bowerbanki, not acan. @FlyinAg Does it have a stony skeleton? Is its tentacles always out? I see acrospheres on the tentacles, which rules out everything except corallimorphs stony corals. It also looks to be colonial, which means it is most likely a stony coral.

As stated, pics a little dark and on phone screen hard to confirm. Bowerbanki was an obvious

 

[thamnasteroid]

Also definitely not an elegance as elegances have opaque tentacles and have one long, meandering corallite instead of multiple corallites. Corallites are also too small.

 

[FlyinAg]

Howdy, yes tentacles always out, and are along rim of polyps, not tucked in like an acan. It looks to have a stony skeleton, albeit a short one. Looks like there is some old skeleton where it had doed back before I had it that is visible. Yes the tentacles have the spheres and are spotted as you mentioned which os also different... Good catch also, the tentacles are not opaque.

It is a beautiful and brilliant specimen! Just can't figure out what!

 

[thamnasteroid]

I asked a coral taxonomist, and he didn’t really know either. I would recommend, if you can, to cut off a single polyp, kill it, and then post a picture of the dead polyp on this thread. Maybe we could tell by skeletal analysis.

 

[FlyinAg]

 

[FlyinAg]

Actually got its tentacles to retract for the first time Ive seem since having it. I tried to get a pic of it withy UV flashlight and they retracted. Shape looks more blasto-ish now... Look at that color!

 

[thamnasteroid]

Actually got its testicles to retract for the first time Ive seem since having it. I tried to get a pic of it withy UV flashlight and they retracted. Shape looks more blasto-ish now... Look at that color!

Doesn’t really look like a blastomussa. Blastomussa tentacles don’t look like that either.

 

[FlyinAg]

dangit autocorrect... Tentacles not testi...

 

[FlyinAg]

Some better pics...

 

[Kasrift]

Definitely not a blasto. My Acans always have their feeders out. However, I'd lean towards a favia of some sort, particularly if you said some of the faces have two mouths.

 

[Jigity_jigity_joe]

Almost looks like a candy cane from those last pics especially with the coloring

 

[thamnasteroid]

Definitely not a blasto. My Acans always have their feeders out. However, I'd lean towards a favia of some sort, particularly if you said some of the faces have two mouths.

Definitely not a Favia, as there are no Favias in the hobby.

Almost looks like a candy cane from those last pics especially with the coloring

Also not a candy cane (Caulastrea/Astraeosmilia), as this coral is not phaceloid.

 

[Jigity_jigity_joe]

I was gonna say it was only missing the stalks. (Excuse my lack of biology terminology. Had to look up what phaceloid was lol) interesting. Be curious to see how it matures

 

[FlyinAg]

Well this is exciting... I will post updates. Might not have to wait long at this rate, it seems to be growing quick. The polyp response to feeding (reef energy, coral cane, phyto) is really good. It doesn't seem to eat larger pieces the way you might see an acan do however.

 

[Kasrift]

Definitely not a Favia, as there are no Favias in the hobby.

Also not a candy cane (Caulastrea/Astraeosmilia), as this coral is not phaceloid.

Haha, you are getting technical and I'll do a quote from Than from Tidal Gardens and just say that using the name Favia was "just to meet people where they are in the hobby" versus getting nitty gritty with taxonomy. You are correct that favias aren't in the hobby because they are a Carribean species if I recall and aren't collected. What I meant was that it looks like what is often listed as a favia. Looks like this to me

 

[BranchingHammer]

The mouths and flesh look like favites or platygyra to me, or another genus that used to be lumped in with favia until recently. Tentacles also point towards these genera.