Some Coral ID help

[Joe31415]

For as long as I've been on this board, I've always wondered why people needed so much help IDing corals. Whenever I'd buy them, the name was written right there on the tank so I knew exactly what I was getting. Then I started finding the $15 racks full of unlabeled frags...now I need help.

We'll start with an easy one. These, I believe, are acans, right?

Not sure about this one. It does send out sweepers at night.

This one kinda looks like a cyphastrea, but the polyps are really tiny. The surface is really smooth (looking) and light blue with light pink dots. I really like it, I'm just not sure it's a cyphastrea. It is encrusting, or at least growing over the plug.

This one (the next two pics are the same frag), I don't even know where to start. Again, kinda looks like a cyphastrea, but until I took the pictures, I hadn't looked at it that closely yet. I hadn't noticed all the ridges in it until I had my camera zoomed in on it. Also, the "polyps" are gold.

Lastly, not a coral, but what kind of sponges are these? When they first showed up all over the bottom of the frag rack, I assumed they were snail eggs. But that doesn't appear to be the case now that I can see them better on the rock.

Here's some additional pictures if anyone wants to see them (or look through an imgur album if it's easier).
One of the things I've learned is that I can buy these unknown cheap frags and if I lose one here or there it's not that big of a deal. It's nice being able to pick something for no reason other than I like how it looks in the LFS and not spend half a day wondering if I'll be able to keep a $100 or $200 coral alive.

 

[mdb_talon]

Acans (micro/acan lords)
Favia
Montipora
Pavona i think

 

[JediFish]

I would peg #3 as an encrusting Montipora, and #4,5 as Leptoseris

 

[mdb_talon]

Acans (micro/acan lords)
Favia
Pavona i think

Sorry i see i missed the third one which is montipora.

Acans (micro/acan lords)
Favia
Montipora
Pavona i think

 

[mdb_talon]

Different color bit believe the last one is similar to this pavona

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[shakacuz]

not sure what the sponges might be but the rest are: acan, favia, could be a stylo or monti, and last seems, to me, a lepto.

edit: the picture above confirms it to be a pavona, and not a lepto.

 

[Joe31415]

Different color bit believe the last one is similar to this pavona

That makes sense. I have a darth maul pavona and it doesn't look like that. Of course I also bleached it so it doesn't look like much of anything right now.

Acans (micro/acan lords)
Favia
Montipora
Pavona i think

Favia is what I was leaning towards, it just looked a bit different than the pictures I was seeing.

I'm not sold on Montipora, but this is hardly a subject I know all that much about. I'll have to see if I can get some better pictures of it.

 

[mdb_talon]

I have a darth maul pavona and it doesn't look like that

Are you sure the darth maul you reference is not porites? Never heard of darth maul pavona as a hobby name but darth maul porites are common?

 

[JediFish]

I would peg #3 as an encrusting Montipora, and #4,5 as Leptoseris

I meant Leptoseris, not Leptastrea.

Pavona as nentioned by

mdb_talon a strong possibility.​

 

[Joe31415]

Are you sure the darth maul you reference is not porites? Never heard of darth maul pavona as a hobby name but darth maul porites are common?

I think that's actually what I settled on. When I bought it, the sticker said pavona (and I remember that because it was the first time I'd heard that word) but I eventually decided it was probably porite.

Interestingly, when I (just now) looked up 'darth maul porites' one of the related images was 'purple sand dollar porites', which looks very similar to what I have. The polyps on mine aren't as dense as the ones in the pictures. But there could be a million reasons for that. I

 

[Joe31415]

Here's another one from the unmarked $20 rack. It was sold to me as a Scoly, but I can't find any pictures that look at all similar. Whatever it is, I'm assuming it's closed (this is how it looked at the LFS too).

 

[flabydab123]

Here's another one from the unmarked $20 rack. It was sold to me as a Scoly, but I can't find any pictures that look at all similar. Whatever it is, I'm assuming it's closed (this is how it looked at the LFS too).

LOL! Sorry to say that you didn't get a scoly - that's a blasto, and an upset / dying one at that. Try to keep it in lower light and lower flow.

 

[Joe31415]

That's fine if it's a blasto. I was likely going to buy it regardless of what it was because I like the neon pink.
As for placement, on the assumption that it was a scoly, I put it in the darkest area of the tank that wasn't a shadow and as far away as I could from the power head.

That's it on the very bottom left, with the plug sitting in a spare PCV coupler. The only light is centered above the tank and the only flow comes from the powerhead you see on the left, pointed up and towards the back wall. Plus, it runs at it's lowest level and with set to turn on and off ever 15 seconds or so.