[Fly Guy]

a coral stang had sparked my interest in this one. i have had it for a bout a year. It turns completely white at night and covers itself 100% during the day with the brownish red polyps......the lights just came on so it is not completely covered in these pics...One differecne...between this and stangs is that his seems to have polyps covering the tips only and the stalks remain kind of barren.....IF it is indeed even the same type of coral


his purple one is much prettier....maybe he wants to trade some frags

anyone know???

 

[stang5_o2002]

Yes, mine's stalk is pretty bare. Polyps only on the branches. Mine stays purple all the time. At night, it shrinks to nearly half normal size. When the lights come on, its normal size again in 15-30 mins. I'll see if i can get a better pic.

 

[stang5_o2002]

This is the best i can do with this camera. It doesnt tank very good closeups. Its a cheapy

 

[Fly Guy]

Yes, mine's stalk is pretty bare. Polyps only on the branches. Mine stays purple all the time. At night, it shrinks to nearly half normal size. When the lights come on, its normal size again in 15-30 mins. I'll see if i can get a better pic.

hmmmm..mine turns an off white kind of like wrigleys chewing gum and doesnt shrink at all at night.

Nobody knows what this is........????

 

[smeese]

finger leather?

 

[Fly Guy]

I have a finger leather the size of a basketball when it swells completely......the polyps behave totally different and the finger leather i have shrinks down to about 1/3 size every night and drastically changes color. There are different kind of finger leathers im sure though.....but this definitely has different characteristics than the one i KNOW is a finger leather.....

another major difference besides the not shrinking at night, and not changing color thing includes it doesnt shed for days when irritated or abused a little....in fact it doesnt do a whole lot of anything but retracts its polyps at night.......it hasnt grown but maybe 20%...MAYBE in the last year. My finger leather has 8 arms that are as big as he was a year ago

maybe.......

 

[VWD]

Looks like a colt to me.

 

[Fly Guy]

Looks like a colt to me.

bingo...i think. i just did a search and think you nailed it...but listen to this

"This is a soft coral that is hardy and relatively competitive (will push out other corals by its fast growth and allelopathy). Some people do not like them because they do grow so fast and will take up territory in the tank; mine is banished to one corner to keep it in check. These corals are easy to frag, but is one of the most difficult soft corals to pin down. Because they are soft-bodied, they are not held down by most epoxies and glues; if squeezed between rocks, it will usually either become unhappy or inevitably squeeze out and "crawl around" the tank, usually bleaching and ending up in a corner which has no light. It needs to grow a good base, and then once it does, will grow very fast with even minimal care."

Funny how in the same tank i can have my finger leather grow as much or more than anything i have ever had, and this colt obviously hasnt been as happy as it could have been...at least not according to this little summary.......it has a good base BUT there is another unidentified coral encrusted on the entire circumference of the rock he is on........im beginning to think he may not like this other coral so much truth be known.....