Difficult ID

[dwarfatize]

Hi All! I am looking for an ID on this coral. I got this frag from my local club's frag swap. Sorry about the quality of the pics but my camera is not that good and it is taking pics of baby polyps.

So let the IDing begin!






Thanks!!!

[shane 1111]

micro or an acan lord. how big are the polyps?

[enitnelaVeyaF]

i like the subtle colors. good snag

[Jus Reefin]

That looks like Yoshido's ( Dannie) Acan Hillea. The bag it was in had no writing on it correct??? That piece looks a lot different from his colony though

[dwarfatize]

Thanks Guys! The bag did have some writing on it but what was written on it had been rubbed off.

The polyps are about as big around as a pencil. I will do a search for Yoshidoand see what I can find. The funny thing about this coral is it wasn't my first or second pic. LOL! it just goes to show ya what some people will overlook.

[shane 1111]

it is a micro. I could be wrong

[yoshiod9]

yup, that's my hillae! but i dunno where those colors came from! lol. they are baby polyps though...cut right from the edge of the new growth. the colony usually looks like this:


that's strange that it changed color that quickly. did you have it in a cooler?? i can't believe it changed that much!

[dwarfatize]

It could be that I don't have it under that much actinic. I am sure that it will grow into its color. Yes I did have it in a cooler. Plus it was sitting in the bag for quite a while because I was helping clean up. I have yet to find a LPS that has not done well for me, so I am not worried. Thanks for bringing it to the swap! I hope I have some frags available soon.

[yoshiod9]

i don't really use actinics either. that picture is under 50/50 pc(96w powerquad), which happens to be a realllllyyyy old bulb(over a year old) and the piece had some nice blue and green hues along with the purple and orange specks. it grows fairly quickly but takes awhile for the polyps to get full sized. good luck with it!!
danny

[hismattjesty]

I have to agree. I got a nice frag of Danny's A. Hillae, and that looks like it to a tee. It stayed a solid purple for about 4 months, and has now gotten a nice green to it. I got 3 or so heads, and they are about 10 now, so it grows fairly quickly. And yes, it does take a while for the polyps to fill out, but when they do, absolutely beautiful!

Nice snag, and good luck with it.

[Jennsb]

Originally posted by yoshiod9
yup, that's my hillae! but i dunno where those colors came from! lol. they are baby polyps though...cut right from the edge of the new growth. the colony usually looks like this:


that's strange that it changed color that quickly. did you have it in a cooler?? i can't believe it changed that much!

Very nice, but thats not a hillae.

[yoshiod9]

well, every time i show updated photos of the constantly fragged colony i get the same naysaying remarks. which is fine by me...but if you can't ID the coral, what's the point of trying to say this isn't 'such and such'? lol.

the colony originally looked like this:


now if that doesn't just scream hillae at you, then i don't know what to tell ya. i have had it up for quite some time as hillae and if i'm wrong, i'll feel bad...but until someone can definitely prove that this isn't hillae, i'll keep calling it hillae(since no one had problems with it before).

[Jennsb]

Originally posted by yoshiod9

the colony originally looked like this:

The pic above came from this colony? This colony is a hillae, and a very nice score, but the pic here:



to me doesn't even resemble that one. The coralites are uniformly round and do not have deep walls, its almost flat. Its neat to see that if it did come from that colony, they are also very slow growers, so if someone fragged that from that colony then it would have taken a very long time to have gotten to the size in the photo. Good luck with it dude.

[Jus Reefin]

It's the same coral in both pics. What grows slow for you may grow faster for someone else depending on tank conditions, feedings, etc.

[RandyO]

Originally posted by yoshiod9


the colony originally looked like this:

Sure looks like hillae to me.

There is not much documentation of what these corals will start to look like in captivity after a while. Good job Danny. Keep taking pictures show you can show it's developments.

[yoshiod9]

jenn- yep...both pics are from the same colony(granted, they were taken about 7 months apart). the colony i bought was HUGE...about 8" across and around 5 or 6" wide...i decided to frag it in half about a week after i bought it...mostly because i run only nano tanks but also to see how it would fare under different lighting schemes.

rob & randy- thanks for the back up there. i was starting to think about all the people i've sold frags to and how many frag swaps i've gotten into the 'rare' category by using this coral(since the colony was so massive!) and was starting to feel pretty crappy about myself. lol.

i'll keep on taking pics to see how she does.

[yoshiod9]

quick story since i've got time to talk about the hillae...

she is ULTRA mean. one of my lord colonies fell onto the hillae and when i found it in the morning i was pretty sure that the was going to be making lunch out of the hillae. i moved the lord off the hillae and saw no discernable damage at the moment. however, by the next day, the lord colony was looking ragged and had flat out disintegrated about 3 full size corallites. nothing but skeleton left.

this is the first coral i've seen take out a lord... pretty darn interesting to see it happen.

[mschriskim]

Yoshi, actually here is what I have seen.

If Lord or Echino sting some others they could win since they mean it but if two corals attached not sting following has been seen.

Hillae kills Lord
Echinatas kills Lord
Echino kills Lord
Yuma kills Lord
Yuma also kills Echino

Well, seems like when something fell on to Lord or Lord fell on to something Lord gets fried...

[GreshamH]

I've seen Lords wipe Echinos clocks right clean, guess some are stonger then others. FWIW, the Echino frag was really doing well, untill the Lord fell. It wasn't there all that long IIRC.