Coral, need help ID,can i frag it?

[LukeTheDuke]

hey all,

ive had this coral for about 2 years

i was told it was a "deepwater lobo" however i cannot for the life of me find any such thing...

a friend asked me for a frag, but we both feel that it would be bad to frag it, maybe even fatal:shock:

iam new here :Cheers:and hope the attached pics can help

it opens in day closes at night, it has 4 "stalks" and 5 heads or mouths (one stalk is splitting. has 2 mouths)

it WILL eat shimp, mylsis, brine, anything i squirt in its center or mouth, that is if my greenspotpuffer doesnt eat it first,

anyhoot id really like to know what it really is i think it is a deepwaterlobo like the guy who sold it to me said, but i just cannot find ANY info about them

id love to give my friend a frag but we both think it would be fatal for the coral, :frustrat:maybe we are wrong

as you can see, some of the pictures are right as/after feeding can you guess which ones? lol

thank you everyone for your opinions and input

 

[LukeTheDuke]

more pics

 

[Jmck]

These are fine to frag, you can literally break off one of the stalks and give it to him. It will spread and split and grow the same as yours

 

[jcegt87]

yeah these look like candy cane corals just find a branch and use sharp pliers to cut it click here>>>> Candy Cane Coral | Torch Lighterss <<<<< to see candycane coral

 

[Smitty]

+1...that coral looks like a trumpet coral to me also, and can easily be fragged by breaking one of the stalks off.
What part of the midwest of illinois are you from?

 

[LukeTheDuke]

smitty iam in the capital city pretty much, work there, live in a small town miles away from work i see your in illinios too! do you by chance know of any fellow reefers? like reef clubs in illinios? by chance? lol maybe ive always wanted to go to one of those type mettings and maybe learn more and trade for differant stuff

THANK you SO MUCH guys n gals

THANKS hella for the link too!! awesomness

we was worried about breaking a stalk off and maybe exposing some soft delicate inside of the being and... well you see what i means

anyone have any more input please! iam all ears... links,pics, info

i have not even been able to find a picture or ANY info on another one like this therefore i ask youse guys here about it/them

 

[fastrd400]

you can use a pair of bone cutters, or a decent sized pair of scissors. Have your friend hold the coral, both the piece being cut, and the piece you are keeping while you cut it.
It will be okay out of the water, so don't trip on that either. Once cut, put your piece back in the tank, and his in a frag cup, or bag of some sort filled with your water.

 

[Smitty]

smitty iam in the capital city pretty much, work there, live in a small town miles away from work i see your in illinios too! do you by chance know of any fellow reefers? like reef clubs in illinios? by chance? lol maybe ive always wanted to go to one of those type mettings and maybe learn more and trade.

I don't personally know of any reef clubs in your area...I'm not a member of one myself, but you should do a google search of them in your area. And may I suggest a chicagoland reef site, chicagoreefs.com, you'll find lots of local people, clubs, and stores throughout the state. I'm also a member of that online forum, where I've met several of the members personally and traded, and bought frags.

 

[fastrd400]

I'm also a member of that online forum, where I've met several of the members personally and traded, and bought frags.

Sometimes after handcuffing the person and holding his gun on them :mrgreen:

 

[Smitty]

Sometimes after handcuffing the person and holding his gun on them :mrgreen:

You're speaking of my elite group of reef members, we work mostly at night...I'm always looking for new members. :)

 

[LukeTheDuke]

so heres another question...

are these stalks just a decoration??

ive seen many candycanes and lobos alot look similar but none hardly have these "stalks"

a friend on another site mentioned that these maybe
blastomussa or possibly a red merletti coral...

so keep the stalks with the coral? or shave them down to have more of a flat base maybe look nicer in sand...

personally iam not doing any of that i like it the way it is,

but... are the stalks more of a deco thing? or the animals shell?

 

[Smitty]

Leave the stalks...that's part of their base. The coral will still live and thrive if you were to cut it down, but I believe it grows like that for a reason.

 

[LukeTheDuke]

so... this is a trumpet? blastomussa? red merlette?

thanks for the input on the stalks smitty

 

[jcegt87]

copied from liveaquaria

"The Caulastrea Candy Cane Coral is a large polyp stony (LPS) coral often referred to as the Trumpet, Torch, Candy, or Bullseye Coral. Its genus name, Caulastrea, comes from the Latin kaulos (stalk), and aster (star) describing its skeletal structure consisting of tubular stalks with stars on each tip. The plump circular polyps are vibrant green, yellow, or blue and brown, with the Candy Cane Coral from Fiji being a brilliant translucent green to teal and brown, and each tip is white. Under actinic light its colorful polyps will stand out from most other corals."


and

"Sometimes confused with Blastomussa, Caulastrea(candy cane) has a more branching skeleton and several mouths per corallite"

basically the name is Caulastrea , but people call them different things

ive never heard of red merlette ...even tried google and nothing came up as far as corals

 

[LukeTheDuke]

NICE!!!

bulls eye braa!

 

[Bifferwine]

It's not a blastomussa. There are two types of blastomussa -- merletti and wellsi. Merletti polyps are about the size of a pencil eraser. It's not blastomussa.

 

[LukeTheDuke]

tucson! i miss that place, spent 3 years there before moving back to this hole... ahhh AZ i miss az SO much

anyhoot, not blastomussa, thats great, scratch that off the list,

so its a candy cane? trumpet? or just a deepwaterlobobrain?
lmao you see why i asked this question... so many choices none of the above

 

[Bifferwine]

I personally think it is a lobophylia. But it could very well be a trumpet of some sort. It's hard to say! They can look very similar.

 

[jcegt87]

you know what after looking at it closely and looking at my LFS specimen this does look like a lobo the heads are bigger (which is what i notice from lobos) trumpets have smaller ones and a little farther apart, how bout you send me a g=frag and ill be able to tell you exactly what my opinion is ( lol choice of words was important here lol)

 

[RyanG]

Thats a lobo, and you can frag it by breaking off the stalks.