Duncanopsammia axifuga

[Gary Majchrzak]

I saw this unusual coral at MO today. It appeared to be captive raised (mounted). I've never seen one before at any LFS.
http://whelk.aims.gov.au/coralsearch...0pages/135.htm


photo courtesy of the whelk/AIMS site

[fedukeford]

Sweet coral, i dont want to even guess how much it was, ive seen them go for $400 for 2 polyps.

Your the mod BangGuy at SWF.com right? The mod Viper collects those kinds of corals and spends HUNDREDS on them, its crazy

[Gary Majchrzak]

Originally posted by fedukeford
Your the mod BangGuy at SWF.com right? The mod Viper collects those kinds of corals and spends HUNDREDS on them, its crazy

I'm not BangGuy. Kewl username, though. (ie: Banggai)

I agree the pricing on these things are crazy!

[gary greguire]

Was it from ORA Gary?

[Gary Majchrzak]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't from ORA. I'll double check tomorrow.

Here's one thread where they're going for $125 per polyp:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...sammia+axifuga

This is definitely one of those corals a casual LFS visitor would not look twice at. Good thing I know my stuff, eh?

[drtango]

I'm pretty sure RandyO has some of this stuff...

John

[Gary Majchrzak]

now that you mention it, John, I did see this type of coral at AquaTech late last year...

[Namyar]

wow that is really neat looking

[ktar]

i have a single polyp of this coral it very cool and i have the ora duncan.

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, RandyO and Stashudave both have these little guys and from what Randy tells me, Todd (as in Todds torch) used to have one as well before they were popular. Seem to be highly sought after from my conversations with the two of them. Kind of odd though cause if you ask me, they're pretty bland looking. Anyway, they respond quickly to direct feedings apparently although they are photosynthetic. For that much money though, I'd rather get something like a watermelon echino that has more color

[bosborn1]

I was about to comment on that...Not very eye catching from the whelk library photo. Maybe they look better in captivity. But they certainly cant compare to the neon green long polyp palys I saw at aquatech.

Scott

[ktar]

if you see the coral itself it has a very bright neon green color to it and very nice under attinic here a pic of the duncan that i recieve from jendub.com http://jendub.com/images/albums/NewA...GP19270130.jpg

[StashuDave]

You mean these Gary?

[IMG]http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/...ncan_Green.jpg [/IMG]


(img)http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/...uncan_Pink.jpg (img)

Dave

[Gary Majchrzak]

Yes. Beautiful!
Make sure to leave no spaces between those image tags.
Use brackets [ ] and not parenthesis ( )

[RandyO]

Here's a little history of Duncanopsammia.

They are found mainly in Australia, and are very common in Australian LFS's. But for many years corals were not exported out of Australia, and to find one here in the US was extremely rare. I only knew of a few people that had them. Julian Sprung being one of them. About 5 years ago, Julian gave ORA one polyp. Since then, they have been growing them out. They had a few setbacks when the Hurricanes came through Florida, but got back on track. They have recently started releasing 6-10 frags a week.

There are rumors that some Australian C.I.T.E.S. permits have allowed some wild Duncanopsammia into the country.

[PCIALF]

Thanks a lot Gary

I had to go get it

It is sweet open. It very much resembles an anemone. I will post a pict.

[bigkev76]

In addition to RandyO's info, they are basically a version of a branching sun polyp according to a few people I spoke to yesterday. Has anyone seen any other colors besides green? That kind of pricing is insane for green branching sun polyps IMO.

[ktar]

it is very nice when open and it does not look anything like a sun coral.

[bigkev76]

like I said, this is what I was told by others. I am unfamiliar with them so... However, I did find some available if anyone is interested and I believe for far less than 125 a polyp.

[PauChi]

Originally posted by bigkev76
like I said, this is what I was told by others. I am unfamiliar with them so... However, I did find some available if anyone is interested and I believe for far less than 125 a polyp.

What's the coloration like...so far ORA's "Green" Duncan is the best one can find currently!!

[bigkev76]

working on finding out more info. will let you know asap.

[StashuDave]

Here's the Pink version. It does look similar to sun coral, but does not act like it. I originally got it because it was a hot, rare coral, but now I like it because I'm an LPS freak and it's fun to feed. It is fully open during the day which makes it convenient and fun to feed. It seems to like larger chunks of food like pieces of Krill, and when well fed grows really quickly. Dave

[PauChi]

StashuDave...got frag and How much...$$$ per polyp? PM me please.

Thanks.
Paul

[RandyO]

I received a frag from Sanjay back in February, when I purchased his 180 gallon complete reef tank. Part of the reason I agreed to buy his whole setup was to get a piece of his Duncan.

When Keith and I got there, he was very reluctant to frag it. It was only 5 heads, and he said he had it for years, with not much luck of growing it. I think he said he got it from Eric B., but I'm not 100%. I grabbed a pair of my coral cutters, and we debated on where it should be cut. Of course, I wanted as big of a frag as I could get, Sanjay wanted to give as little of it away as possible. I ended up cutting off one full branch, with a half a polyp attached. It was good enough for me. I had been looking for a piece of this coral for over 10 years, ever since I saw it in Eric Bornaman's book, A practical Guide to Corals. He called it, "The Whiskers Coral".

Here is the frag I got from Sanjay. This picture was taken in March, and the half polyp quickly filled in the other half with tentacles. I had glued it to a small rock when I got home from Sanjay's, late that night.





I kept the frag on the bottom of my 40 breeder, lit with 2 96 watt PC's. I had the frag in a plastic cup, so no other corals would accidentally fall onto it. I treated it like gold, and was very careful with it, since I knew it would be hard to find another one. I tried to feed it at least once a week.

By May, it started sprouting little buds off the tentacles.




So I started feeding it a little more. And that's when the growth started to take off. Within no time, those buds were full polyps, and then those polyps were making more buds.

By August, I had close to 12 heads.


Here it is closed up in August, so you can see the skeletal formation.







In September, A local reefer had told me that ORA had a colony, and was starting to sell frags, but it was impossible to get one from them. He asked me to frag mine. So I cut off a single head. I had noticed where I fragged it, new tentacles formed out of the cut within a week.

Here is the coral in December. I had fragged it again, this time I took a 3 polyp piece off it. The frag is next to the colony.



Here's a terrible pic of the underside. You can see where I cut the 3 polyp branch off. This is a few days after the cut, and tentacles are already forming over the cut.




The last time I looked under my mother colony, there were 6 or more new buds.

[kase]

here is a link for anyone that is looking for frag of these, it's pretty cheap $25 per polyps now. so there are not as hard to get your hands on them know.

http://www.roesmarineworld.com/newbies.php

but these are what i have been looking for and where hard to find or get. since there are from the sea of japan and you can not collect or import/export them.

Rhizotrochus Typus going for around $350(US)per polyp.


here a link to them but it's all in Japanesse
http://www.petballoon.co.jp/item/viewItem.php?prm=CH067

this is there coral section of the page if you couldn't find it.
http://www.petballoon.co.jp/item/viewGroup.php?prm=C