Help, bright red coral ID plz

[gchuang]

Hi all,

Here are some pics of a coral that basically grew out of nothing in my live rock.. it is gorgeous and so bright, but I have no idea what it is! My clown is currently hosting in it, and recently it has been breaking off into pieces as it is getting too big. Any ideas how to frag it? I have been super gluing the broken off pieces onto rock rubble, but it doesn't seem to be working very well.

In the pic, the coral in question is the big red one... you can see a "frag" in the right side.

Pics are attached:

http://www.gchuang.com/coral.jpg

http://www.gchuang.com/coral1.jpg

Here is some more info:

It grew from a bright red little spot on the live rock.
It is soft, with no hard skeleton at all ( even though it kinda looks like frogspawn ).
It is kind of jelly like, though a bit more rigid than actual jelly ( kind of more like jell-o or gelatin )
Seems very hardy and probably photosynthetic ( no mouths that I can see )
Again, it has grown from nothing to the current size in just a half year.

Any ideas???

Thanks in advance!!

[Sloth]

That thing grew out of your rock?! That's awesome!

For a minute I was going to say that looks like a dyed coral, but I guess not. Does it glow under actinics?

What kinds of things are you feeding your tank, and how much?

[MiddletonMark]

I am clueless as well what it is ... other than quite cool.

Almost wonder if it's a form of Macroalgae?

[joetbs]

Mark, it is macro. Not sure on the name. Looks almost like a RBTA coming out of a rock.

joe

[gchuang]

Yea its pretty crazy.... so you guys think its a macro? That is highly likely considering I don't think this thing is actually eating anything, but prolly just living off the light.. oh and also it cannot move at all on its own.

I guess only difference is it feels jelly like instead of plant-like.. any one else wanna take a stab?

Sloth:
I feed frozen brine, frozen mysis, cyclopeeze, and some microvert.. tho I assume this thing doesn't really eat any of that.

[MiddletonMark]

Well, I can first `get at' my books with Macro pics Friday evening :( ... but I'll see if I can find anything. [though don't know a `complete' algae book]

[clown2be]

Dibs on next frag.

Eric

[gchuang]

MIddletonMark,

Thanks for helping out! WOuld love to figure out what it is and if its "fraggable". So far the pirces that have broken off aren't doing so well when super glued to rocks.. THey seem to be dying slowly..

Since its prolly a macro, anyone have ideas how to propogate it? That way I can make some trades :-)

[TippyToeX]

Look up Nemastoma sp. on a google search. Looks like it to me. :)

[Evergreen]

Don't you just love it when you can't even identify something to it's Kingdom? I hate that!

[clown2be]

bump

[EricHugo]

Look like algae.

[MiddletonMark]

Originally posted by TippyToex
Look up Nemastoma sp. on a google search. Looks like it to me. :)

Uh, Amy sure looks close to the answer. No suprise out of her :)

http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/guest/algaepage/Red/redbulb/Nemastoma2.htm
I googled `nemastoma photo' and found this, among others.

FYI ... but this sounds like the answer to me, or mightly close.

[EricHugo]

Nemastoma is a Caribbean species. I do not see it listed in my South Pacific Reef Plants book - is this Caribbean rock?

If not, there are quite a few bulbous red algae that would be very hard to tell apart by a photo that look the one here...Rhodymenia pacifica, Erythrocolon podagricum, Coelarthum cliftonii, Chamaebotrys boergesenii, Sebdenia flabellata and the most likely by appearance, Predaea weldii and P. lacinosa

In the Caribbean, it could also be Scinaia complanata, , Renouxia, Predea feldmannii, Platona cyclocalpa, Sarcodiatheca caribbea, Chrysymenia enteromorpha, C. littleriana, or Coelarthrum cliftonii. Here, Platona has orangish tip son the red thalli, like the photo.

Point is, you can't really tell from the photo.

Its an algae. ;-)

[romunov]

I've read that clownfish have been observed to be occupying sea grass beds too...

[burton14e7]

Are we talkn about the coral or the red aptasia lookn thing?

[gchuang]

wow, u all are great! so far, I believe it is the Nemastoma sp. from the pics.. The pics I found on google look very similar, especially before it grew out so much.

I am not sure where the rock is from, except that it is the rock I got with my order of purple mushrooms. ANyone know where they harvest those?

Also, my clown is weird, he used to host on the mushrooms until that algae grew out large enough for him to swim in, so now he hosts on that, and I have fragged off most the mushrooms from the rock.

Now, an important question.. what would you say is the best way to try and "frag" this thing.. it is so cool :-) so far, supergluing the broken off pieces doesnt seem to work. I would assume you need to replant it somehow.

[EricHugo]

Its hard to propagate gelatinous algae. I'd snip off sections and place in a very very still location and wedge with small pieces of live rock.

If the rock came with purple mushrooms, its Indo-Pacific since there are no purple mushrooms in the Caribbean, and therefore your algae cannot be Nemastoma. Nor can you ID this algae because it looks like a photo on a website. Furthermore, I seriously doubt that Bob Fenner, or anyone at wetwebmedia or whatever other website it was found is necessarily correct in their ID or able to definitively ID most macroalgae, either.

[gchuang]

Thanks Eric!

I guess I will be content in knowing that it is a gelatinous algae and not a coral haha :-)

Well, Im off to wedge the broken pieces in various locations, just to see what happens. As it gets bigger, sections kind of break off on their own. I suppose this may be one way they would reproduce in the wild?

Well thanks for all the help! I will let you guys know how the experiment goes.

[Kent E]

Wow that is colorful, if you figure out how to frag it, put me on the list!

[PaulB]

what ever happened to this ?