Help with coral id

Albertan22 · #1 06-15-2010, 02:30 AM

So this little specimen started as a tiny little patch of polyps on my liverock that somehow survived the cycle. Now 10 months later it's spread to 10 times it's original size and has started growing branches! Anybody know what it might be? It's polyps look like that of an SPS, but until it started branching in the last few days I honestly didn't think that it could actually be an SPS coral...

fishytime · #2 06-15-2010, 02:36 AM

looks like it could be a montipora digitata....

#3 06-15-2010, 03:30 AM

+1 on digi. Nice hitch hicker there free corals are always nice. Many years ago that was the only way we could get corals because we could not ship them into Canada.

Bill

Jeff_ · #4 06-15-2010, 04:07 AM

porites could be a possibility as well.

High tide · #5 06-15-2010, 08:08 AM

Porites is a definite possibility and a very common and hardy hitchhiker, but as a hitchhiker it always seems to just encrust or form massively, based on that I'd guess it's a monti........then again.....

nlreefguy · #6 06-15-2010, 09:07 AM

It looks more like porites to me, with those well defined coralites. Looks exactly like a porites hitchihiker I have. Porites can be branching as well, or possibly "lobular" - those "branches" may never get any bigger than that and just be like lobes scattered across the surface of an otherwise just encrusting coral. Or it may be that it is atually branching. I have several "accidental" acquisitions of porites and it comes in all forms.