Coral ID

Can anybody tell me what is the name of this coral ?

Do you have a clearer pic? I would say it is probably some type of pocillopora.

Yeah, that is my guess for the moment too…

The top part looks like some sort of monti, but the way it is growing like a pocillapora

I will try and take a better pic and post it later today. Thanks for looking

It’s an SPS! (I just wanted to get something right)

Here is a better picture I hope. The piece has a orange color skeleton with green polyps. I bought it from a LFS awhile back. When I was still living in Long Island
Thanks for any info that you can give me

Yeah, it looks like a nice sized pocillipora.

Thanks everybody for your replies. Mod you can close this thread.

Wait, hold on. Is this coral a softy or an SPS? If you touch/power head hits it does it bend or move? Or is it extremly rigid and hard. Still not a perfict photo(difficult to do I know), but this image looks to have an odd very odd growth structure for a pocillipora.

Check images of Scleronephtya, but I doubt it if you have had it for any length of time. There is another soft coral often sold in the hobby which I forget the common name of. I’ll see if I can pull Andy into this thread as he may know. I think he’ll know what I am talking about as it is the one I always forget the name of.

It has the same overall appearance of a carnation coral (which is the common name for Scleronephtya) - but I have never seen one where the polyps were a completely different color then the coral itself. i.e. grren on yellow, but weirder things have happened. I still think it’s a pocilipora.

As far as not having it for any length of time, carnations with regular feedings and good husbandry will do very well. I have had one for several months that is growing quite nicely.

The the big question though, is it a softie or an SPS.

I didn’t use the term carnation coral because if someone said this I would think Dendronepthya(and so would the search engines) which also falls under the same common name and looks different then Scleronepthya. If I had told them to search for carnation coral then ~90% of the images they would come up with would be of Dendronepthya. Corals of the genus Dendronepthya typically have longer stalks are often more highly branched and show there scerlites.(all of which are the oppisit of Scerlonepthya.) I know some of you guys could care less about that scientific name crap, but just wanted to explain why I used it in this case.

[quote=“Gordonious, post:13, topic:1130”]
I know some of you guys could care less about that scientific name crap, but just wanted to explain why I used it in this case.[/quote]

We all know how much I love scientific names. I only mention it as a clarification. I had to Google it myself to know what it was. Problem with Google is that if you google both names you end up with the same pictures.

The first pic that is missing really made it look like an SPS. You could see more of a stony structure with defined small polyps…at least I that is how I remember it, its gone now.

Jon, I think the name you are looking for is Leminalia or Nepthea. They resemble a sclereonepthea but are photosynthetic.

My vote is still pocillipora if its hard. Now that Jon mentioned it, if it is soft I’m going with a Leminalia.

The coral is a hard coral,and I agree that the growth of the skeleton doesn’t seem to look like that of pocillipora. I have 3 other corals that are pocillipora and this doesn’t look like them.hence the reason I wanted to know if any body may have seen one similar to this.

Most corals will have different growth structures depending on local conditions. Some hard corals are actually known to have three competely different growth structures and up until recently were considered to be three different species until someone took a closer look.

The positive thing I would say is if this is pocillipora it seems to be branching a lot more then the typical coral. Often times they seem, in my experience, to start branching a lot if the local conditions are ideal for new growth. It could be that either the coral is very happy in your tank or was extremly happy right before coming into your tank.(either way it is good) It will be intersting to see how this coral grows out. Try to resist cutting it up and see how it grows out.

I have had this particular coral for about 1.5 yrs now, and it has done well. It has grown double in size.

This is the best I can do for pics.