Is this acanthastrea?

[Tomoko Schum]

Hi y'all,

This coral was sold to me as red acanthastrea. I really don't know what it is, though. Can someone id this? It is a very fast growing coral.



Tomoko

[reef2]

id say it looks like favia.

[jski711]

agree on the favia comment. in order to id an acan you really need to look at the skeleton structure. i just read an article about iding acans and how they have really been around for a while but were never id'd correctly and sold under different coral names. hth.

[All Delight]

I'd guess on favia too

[Tomoko Schum]

It cannot be a favia. The corallites of favia do not share the common walls like this one's. If this is a type of Faviidae, it is more like a favites or a goniastrea, don't you think?

Tomoko

[greystreet41]

no clue...is it that red in person? Beautiful piece.
edit: tomoko, it doesn't look like they are sharing walls...am I seeing that wrong?

[Tomoko Schum]

Yes, it's that red. The color of the picture turned out just like the real thing.

This is what it looked like 6 months ago - not as good a picture(taken with a different camera), but you can tell how fast it grew in 6 months:



Tomoko

[greystreet41]

kinda looks like the 2nd pic here (acan subechinata)....
http://whelk.aims.gov.au/coralsearch...0pages/784.htm

[Tomoko Schum]

I first thought that it may be an Acanthastrea echinata, but my coral does not appear as fleshy as most of acans...

Tomoko

[Chads29]

a little bit more descriptive would help... It appears as a favia from the first glance but after looking at the picture more closely it appears the size of the polyps is much smaller maybe Concinaraea hahazimaensis

[madadi]

whatever it is, its a real nice coral. looks like its going to get huge fast

[zeppelin]

My guess would be favites, from the pic. Very nice coloration.

[Tomoko Schum]

Thank you, guys.

Greystreet41 - Yes, it has shared common walls.

Tomoko

[greystreet41]

saw this just now and thought it looked very similar...whatcha think?
http://www.reefermadness.us/RMD06087038.htm

[Tomoko Schum]

Wow, that's a really pretty green favia! I am afraid that mine does not quite look like it. The favia does not share the common walls. You can see each individual polyp having its own separate wall - you can clearly see the groove between adjacent two polyps in the coral in the Reefermadness picture.

Tomoko

[Caleb Kruse]

Could it be Leptastrea? Heres some pics, http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=835168

[Tomoko Schum]

Some of the Leptastrea look very close to what I have. Some of them also look a lot like my coral which I bought as a blastomussa.

Tomoko

[gflat65]

Interesting piece, Tomoko.

[Tomoko Schum]

Thank you, gflat. I really love its bright red color. Actually I don't care what it is, but people ask me what it is when they see it in my tank. I thought someone here might know, but I understand that identifying a coral is a real tricky business.

An LFS here has a large colony of this coral from which this frag came. When the owner fragged it, I was really appalled about the rough way he went about it, but he assured me that it's a really fast healing and fast growing coral. True to his word, this coral is doing very well for me.

Tomoko

[Caleb Kruse]

Originally posted by Tomoko Schum
Some of the Leptastrea look very close to what I have. Some of them also look a lot like my coral which I bought as a blastomussa.

Tomoko

Thats what I thought, some look exactly like blasto merletti, and others look alot like your coral, and then some of them look completly different.

[gflat65]

Is that in Athens? If so, I may need to make a trip.

[Tomoko Schum]

Nope, it's in Huntsville in a shop called Lucy's Lagoon. The shop is not doing well - definitely a wrong location. I don't know how long they can keep their doors open.

Tomoko

[gflat65]

I've heard of Lucy's. Huntsville is a little closer than Athens, anyway.