Hichhiker coral I need a name for him?

big

Active Member
A year or two ago I started seeing these guys show up..... I ask at that time what they are but since have forgotten the name.
Well one of them was growing, very slowly I may add in a spot I could pull it out and move it forward to photograph . It was growing with the stalk vertical but this was about the only place I had to put it, now horizontal.............
I also am seeing others showing up in the tank.
What the heck is their name? Also if someone knows how large will they grow?.
Thanks all..... Warren
 

big

Active Member
I hate to bump my own thread, but I sure would like to give this guy a name................
 

big

Active Member
Yea the green one, the Palys I have thousands of.
It sorta looks like a Stylophora, but the body of the coral is very soft...... Learned that when I yanked it off from its previous home in the back of the tank.
Aren't Stylophoras in the SPS family? If it where one I would think it would have a stony body, not a soft one.....
Thanks for the try though, the mistery continues......
 

big

Active Member
For comparison. Here is a tight close up shot I just took of him after lights out. The body is now well contracted with the polyps - tentacles all withdrawn or retracted....Or at least I think they are.. Now looking at this shot it looks like feeders showing at the top of the stem???? There is no way I could have seen these what look like feeders with the n a k e d eye. At first I though maybe strands of super glue on the stem from when a put him on that big glob of glue, but I almost positive that I did not get any glue on that part of his body when I was attaching him. He is about an inch across at best..........Da SWF won't let me type N A K E D .
 

big

Active Member
OK so a late night search and I learned something..........
I think I found it on Reefkeeping ...............
It looks the be a Palau Neon Green Nepthea....Thanks to the guy I copied the shot from.......
Shots look just like it. The descriptions match too....... Apparently very rare in nature anymore, some say now extinct in the wild.... I found this in a web search after figuring out a name to go by.... But does show up just like mine did in reef tanks that have some age on them now and them.......
Here is a shot I found on another site....... In his description, it says intense neon green the shot does not show that well.....
 

fishkid13

Active Member
I have one also. It has the same body shape and look but it is not as neon green.
I don't know if it is rare, I mean sense I have one, it can't be rare.
 

big

Active Member
Originally Posted by fishkid13
http:///forum/post/3099416
I have one also. It has the same body shape and look but it is not as neon green. %% I don't know if it is rare, I mean sense I have one, it can't be rare.

Yea the shots I took with my Cannon XTI do show it very close to its true color, bright neon green, about the same color as some of the very bright green Star Polyps ...... Maybe a bit more neon even than them.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
It is not a Nephthea, it is a neon green sinularia. You can tell the diff, in that a nephthea cannot completely retract it's polyps. Other than that they are pretty much identical to the

[hr]
eye.
As far as "something special to keeping them"...Those are easier corals to keep. You still need lights, albeit lower lighting is fine, and good husbandry as with any coral.
Very pretty coral BTW.

This is a quote I pulled from another sight when I put "nephthea vs sinularia differences" in my google... It was the second result with way more info if you wanna be 100% sure. But here's a segment...
but Sinularia have retractile polyps and Nephthea's are non-retractile and it does appear in several of your shots that the polyps are retracted (especially the small rubberbanded fragment).
_____________________
Eric Borneman
 
T

tizzo

Guest
And this... says sinularia... More from that google result...
The stalk surface of Nephthea has small little star-like sclerites called capstans - almost too small to see without a microscope (0.1mm, approx) and if you get to the ******** of the stalk, you will see occasional spindles (longer ones, similar in shape to what you have, but only about .8-1mm in length.
In Sinularia, you have very long spindles, straight and curved, that can be several mm's long and are visible to the eye, along with small clubs (0.1-0.2mm), and I suspect that is what you will see with the magnifying glass. You almost certainly have Sinularia.
_____________________
Eric Borneman

 

big

Active Member
Thanks Tiz... This was one hitchhiker I have never encountered before............I appreciate the clarification, I doubt I would have looked for something so similar.......
I am seeing a batch of them budding in different locals in the tank. They seem to start with just a tiny bright green spot on the rocks.....
So it is a Sinularia.
 
Top