Montipora Digi question

[SweetOblivion]

Hello chaps, before we begin I'd like to share a bit of backstory.

This is my 6th month in the hobby, and 3rd month of reefing. I get a lot of my animals and plants from a local fishstore run by a seasoned fellow named Mike.

Mike has decades of experiance in fishkeeping and is rarely mistaken, he used to work on tanks for movie sets years back.

Anyway, I recently purchased a good sized Montipora Digi with bright green polyps for about 50 dollars. I've had it for a while and love it quite a bit, as this is my first SPS coral, but I've noticed something peculiar.

The branches on this digi are disturbingly thin, maybe a 1/4 of an in the thicker areas. It's quite brittle as well, I've managed to break off a few pieces while simply moving it (which later were glued to frag plugs and placed back in the tank until my frag tank is set up) I've never seen a digi this thin before, even online.

I'm curious as to what my fishkeeping elders think of this, and if there's any way to encourage thicker branch growth.

Thanks.

 

[ReefPiracy]

More flow will increase thickness.

 

[SweetOblivion]

More flow will increase thickness.

Ah, thank you, how much would you suggest?

 

[ReefPiracy]

3000 gph from power head for every 60 gallons.

 

[GHill762]

that's not a montipora.. looks more like seriatopora (birdsnest) imo..

 

[pirate2876]

that's not a montipora.. looks more like seriatopora (birdsnest) imo..

+1 No digi.

 

[Preyou]

+1... Polyp extension and branch growth would lead me to believe that it is a birdsnest.

 

[footballdude2k3]

+1 on the wrong coral, the branches might not get too much thicker if that is the case, but I think I have about 40-50x turnover in my tank

 

[SweetOblivion]

Well, that's rather enlightening.

That explains why it's so delicate.

 

[footballdude2k3]

birdsnests are usually pretty hardy, I had a bunch of frags survive after taking a ride through an MP40, what do you mean it is pretty delicate?

 

[SweetOblivion]

birdsnests are usually pretty hardy, I had a bunch of frags survive after taking a ride through an MP40, what do you mean it is pretty delicate?

What I meant was: It has a rather brittle skeleton compared to most of the other SPS corals I've seen.

 

[Velodog2]

I agree on the birdsnest ID. But incidentally M. Digitata also has very brittle and delicate branching.

 

[Salt Creep]

Agreed, that looks like an ORA neon green birdsnest and it looks fine as far as thickness. Mine does grow in a tighter cluster though.