New leather Coral, need an ID

ThunderTurtle · 03-16-2003, 11:04 PM

I brought home this small frag from my parents this weekend. It's a leather, carpet of some sort I belive. If anyone can give me a positive ID on I would be very appreciative. Also a picture of it in my tank which has been set-up for almost 3 months now.

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/117578.jpg

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/117580.jpg

Thanks everyone

-Travis

Alice · 03-17-2003, 09:23 AM

It's hard to tell at this stage. What did the parent colony look like?

ThunderTurtle · 03-17-2003, 11:40 AM

Well it's hard for me to really say what the parent colony looked like. It was injured, which is why we tried to save some frags of it, but It resembled a carpet leather which is why I guessed it was a form of carpet. A realativly flat coral with some 'humps' or 'loops'. The two small frags I have are both about twice as long as they are wide and in a rounded shape. Not sure if this helps much, I guess I may just have to let it grow out some and see if I can post up another picture. I've looked online and in all of our books, but havnt found anything that matches it.

-Travis

cyberchef · 03-17-2003, 03:24 PM

Are those "bumps" on the top of the coral the extended polyps? Looks like a sarcophyton, similair to the ones I gave to Tom. Do they smell really nasty when you take them out of the water or when you opened the bag you used to bring them home in?

ThunderTurtle · 03-17-2003, 09:36 PM

Thanks for the reply, Yes, the 'bumps' are the extended polyps. They were all in and the surface was smooth when I put him in the tank. He does have a smell, stronger than most other corals i've handled, similar to the smell Xenia gives off. I'll do some searches on sarcophyton and see what I can discover, thanks for the lead.

-Travis

cyberchef · 03-17-2003, 10:16 PM

Sounds exactly like the ones I gave Tom. lol Be careful, really serious toxin capablities, which is in part what causes some of the odor. Zenia doesn't stand a chance against it or near it. I finally had to isolate it to a seperate tank because it was causing problems for some of my other corals.

Doug1 · 03-18-2003, 06:20 AM

From the looks and sounds of it, its highly likely a Sarcophyton sp. of some type. Welcome to the wonderful world of taxonomy. A place of site and sound, sclerites, and coralites, polyp tentacle counts and DNA tracking.
Taxo in corals is challenging at best, esp with soft corals because of the lack of a permenent skeleton that exhibits certain standard feature for type. Soft corals can vary in color and appearence dramaticaly among same species.
There are very few people actively studying coral taxo and they dont agree among themselves. In most cases if you can ID it to Genus you are doing good