New corals! Identify?

[Emvy]

Hey all! First time coral purchase, very exciting.

The lfs had a few only labeled as “assorted”.

Got a couple Duncans, a hammer and xenia(not very happy yet) on the rack.

Can anyone help identify the ones down on the frag rocks? These two were labeled “assorted”. Wasn’t sure if the one was a miniature cluster of Zoas or something (forgive me if I’m way off, very new and still learning the ropes).
And no idea on the other one. Thanks!

 

[TX_REEF]

This one, I think is an acanthastrea:

And this one, appears to be a pipe organ:

 

[Emvy]

This one, I think is an acanthastrea:

And this one, appears to be a pipe organ:

Thank you! The pipe organ, as you say, looks like it’s losing some tissue after the dip so I moved it pretty clear of flow for now

 

[Dburr1014]

This one, I think is an acanthastrea:

I thought it looks like a blasto, I could be wrong.

 

[rdirtytwo]

Hey all! First time coral purchase, very exciting.

The lfs had a few only labeled as “assorted”.

Got a couple Duncans, a hammer and xenia(not very happy yet) on the rack.

Can anyone help identify the ones down on the frag rocks? These two were labeled “assorted”. Wasn’t sure if the one was a miniature cluster of Zoas or something (forgive me if I’m way off, very new and still learning the ropes).
And no idea on the other one. Thanks!

Bottom right looks like my blue and brown leptastrea under white lights

 

[thamnasteroid]

From left to right: Cyphastrea decadia and Leptastrea purpurea

 

[thamnasteroid]

This one, I think is an acanthastrea:

not Acanthastrea; note corallite size and opaque tentacles. Also note coenosarc texture; no concentric wrinkles

And this one, appears to be a pipe organ:

Not pipe organ; note white skeleton and tentacle count and morphology, pipe organs have red skeletons with 8 pinnate tentacles. Also note costosepta, pipe organ skeletons lack this

 

[Emvy]

Very informed, thank you! I just posted another thread with a potential pest I found but I’ll ask while you’re here since it’s on the Cyphastrea decadia at present. Any idea what this is and if it’s harmful?

 

[redacted_]

Very informed, thank you! I just posted another thread with a potential pest I found but I’ll ask while you’re here since it’s on the Cyphastrea decadia at present. Any idea what this is and if it’s harmful?

+1 with @thamnasteroid 's genus level identifications. This pic you shared definitely confirms that its not a pipe organ, though I hope the shop gave you a discount on that dying coral. The snail in the pic looks like a Stomatella snail, good critter and helpful cleaning nooks and crannies. You'll have a bunch in no time.

 

[Kerbash]

not Acanthastrea; note corallite size and opaque tentacles. Also note coenosarc texture; no concentric wrinkles



Not pipe organ; note white skeleton and tentacle count and morphology, pipe organs have red skeletons with 8 pinnate tentacles. Also note costosepta, pipe organ skeletons lack this

The skeleton looks like a galaxea to me.

 

[thamnasteroid]

Actually on second thought, it might be a weird galaxea. Note the fasciculate skeletal structure, lack of coenosteal spinules, and dissepiments.

The skeleton looks like a galaxea to me.

Yeah, you right. I was about to say that.

Also, hi @adamwang!

 

[Emvy]

+1 with @thamnasteroid 's genus level identifications. This pic you shared definitely confirms that its not a pipe organ, though I hope the shop gave you a discount on that dying coral. The snail in the pic looks like a Stomatella snail, good critter and helpful cleaning nooks and crannies. You'll have a bunch in no time.

Which do you refer as dying, the one with the snail on it? In the other pic the Xenia on top is pretty much dead now. The Duncan’s and hammer are flourishing though thankfully

 

[redacted_]

@thamnasteroid I was going to say those corallites looked a bit elongated. I just joined reef2reef and saw your name so just wanted to pop by and say hi haha. Didn't realize you were active in the reefing community as well

@Emvy The earlier pics were not clear and I didn't even notice the collapsed Xenia until you mentioned that. That one is a goner.

The Galaxea's (one with snail on it) flesh looks like it has been receding for a while, since the skeleton has green algae growing within it. However, the opaque damaged tissue on the left looks like something during transport. If you bought that particular frag for less than 20 bucks, I wouldn't raise it as an issue, though do keep a lookout for that in the future. Galaxea are on the hardier side, so if you keep your water params stable it should grow over in a few months.

 

[Emvy]

@thamnasteroid I was going to say those corallites looked a bit elongated. I just joined reef2reef and saw your name so just wanted to pop by and say hi haha. Didn't realize you were active in the reefing community as well

@Emvy The earlier pics were not clear and I didn't even notice the collapsed Xenia until you mentioned that. That one is a goner.

The Galaxea's (one with snail on it) flesh looks like it has been receding for a while, since the skeleton has green algae growing within it. However, the opaque damaged tissue on the left looks like something during transport. If you bought that particular frag for less than 20 bucks, I wouldn't raise it as an issue, though do keep a lookout for that in the future. Galaxea are on the hardier side, so if you keep your water params stable it should grow over in a few months.

I was going to go for just softies since it’s our first corals but the galaxea (now that I know it’s name) looked pretty cool and I wanted to grab ~5 corals and was around 25 bucks so I figured why not. The flesh wasn’t too bad upon purchase, I may have been to rough when I was agitating the water during the initial dip before I put them in there as some of it was hanging off. To top that off, I think I had it too directly in the flow. (None of that algae was there, it was like white skeleton and has grown on it over the past week).

So, I moved it out of the way of flow and am keeping my eye on it. I would have liked to get it off that rock it came on to minimize algae but I didn’t want to disturb it any more…