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My Corals
Coral Photos

On 5/21/08, I got my first corals. These are the four I got and how they did.

1. Green zooanthids - Despite being the "easiest corals," mine have yet to fully open as of 5/25/08. They do partially open and then close back up. Update 6/7/08 - about half of them are doing well while the other half closer to the light barely open or do not open at all. By 7/4/08, they seem to be doing better.

2. Green mushroom - They are of the type that looks like a short anemone. There are two of them. The first morning, they were the only corals to open fully. They seemed to do great for a few days and then put out this muddy stuff out of the middle of them. Then, one began to sag and fall off the rock. Not so good. They fell apart and died. I tried moving them to the floor of the tank with less light but all that was left was some stinking slop which I removed on 5/26/08.

3. Duncan LPS (long polyp stony) coral - This one peeked out of its tube a few times but never opened. I think it is a goner. I removed it on 5/27/08 after the innards fell out.

4. Star polyps - This coral stayed mostly shut for a few days but then recovered and is the only coral that is doing well. It fully opens within a few hours of the lights coming on and closes each night. Update 6/7/08: On 6/5/08, the colony had fallen off the rock while I was at work as the epoxy came off. They were damaged but within a few days were mostly as good as before.

On 6/16/08, I got six more corals.

1. Zooanthids - Two species on one rock. One is a beautiful orange and one is a larger green one. There are also three little feather dusters on the rock.

2. Brown mushroom corals - a small rock had three tiny brown mushroom corals on it. The two smaller ones seem to have faded away but the remaining one seems healthy. There are also two things on the rock. They look like snails except they never move, just a hard shell affixed to the rock. I cannot figure out what they are. There is also some pink stuff on this little piece of rock. It might be foraminiferans?

3. Duncan LPS coral - Unlike the last one, this one has done great! He is an active feeder and opens up wide. Every few days, he looks all icky (closed up, discolored), poops out some brown waste, and then is better the next day. Around 7/18/08, this coral started to have "babies" growing out of its neck, about four of them. Eventually, they will become new mouths. By 8/14/08, the mouths are actively feeding but still small.

4. Pavona SPS (short polyp stony) coral - He said it was a Pavona but looking on-line, mine does not look like those. It seems to be doing well but they do not do much! The star polyps started to sting the SPS coral in August of 2008 so I finally moved the SPS coral over a few inches to the other live rock on 8/30/08. About 15% of it was burnt from the star polyps.

5. Star polyps - I just loved my first star polyps so the guy "fragged" me off a nice piece of star polyps. They are doing well. On 6/28/08, when I cleaned out the tank, they closed up, not unusual. But, they took four days to open again! I thought I lost them but they seem fine. The star polyps have plopped their purple foundation down on to the live rock and have started to spread. They are growing fast.

6. Sun coral - It has an orange tube and yellow polyps that only come out at night. That guy must be fed because he has no symbiotic algae like most corals. I put him sort of in the cave on the floor. I have been trying to feed it at night but it almost never opens and then barely so. It seems these corals are hard to keep alive so it already be too late. As of 7/19/08, the sun coral is opening more at night. It has burst a few smaller heads out of its side and seems to be growing now. I feed it a few times a week and hope it is eating okay. In time, the sun coral opened less and less. I waited for it to open to feed it. When it did, it would not take the food. Eventually, it stopped opening at all. By October, I think it is pretty much dead. It was too hard to take care of for me. I feel really bad.

I found it interesting that my star polyps seem to be able to tell time. The older batch of them can tell anyway. That is because they shut up right before the lights go out at night. The only way they would know would be if they can tell time. The newer star polyps often stay open all the time as well as the Duncan.

On 7/6/08, I got two more corals.

1. Pineapple brain coral - It is very small and does not do much. By 7/19/08, it looks like this coral may have some bleaching around the edges. My other corals are doing so well so I am not sure why this one is unhappy. It seems to lack a real mouth like the others, just minute things.

2. Xenia - A basic unknown species. It is very small and flopped over when I got it after the cashier bashed them around. After a week, the two largest parts were still sagging down. By 7/19/08, the xenia are upright. They pulse on and off, opening and closing. On 10/18/08, something awful happened by accident. I was using the tubing to suck up planaria, and as I moved the tube from the front of the small tank to the back, the Xenia was sucked up the tube for just a moment. This caused the soft tissue to elongate but not break off. The poor thing looks horrible. It is trying to pulse but is bent over. I hope it can recover. I was so upset. It did recover and was almost normal within a week.

On 8/12/08, I got one coral for my new 6 gallon nano:
1. Mushroom coral - so far, so good. I put this green mushroom loose on the live rock, and it anchored within a few days. In fact, when the light failed soon after I put the mushroom in the tank, I could not pry it loose to move it to my other tank where it could get some light. It was in the dark for 3 weeks before they sent a new lid with light! It survived that and thrived. Interestingly, the day I put the new below corals in the six gallon tank, this first mushroom detached itself from the rock! It floated around in the current and settled on the sand. It was not attached to it within a week so I put it back where it had been. It again floated away. I swear this mushroom is capable of deciding where it does and does not want to be! It does not like its new friends!

On 10/4/08, I received two "nano coral packs" from Live Aquaria with a total of 14 small corals and/or live rocks with corals.

1. Mushroom corals - Seven arrived. All went in the 6 gallon tank. These include a green Ricordia mushroom and an orange and purple Ricordia mushroom, both absolutely gorgeous. I hope they do not eat my clown goby or sexy shrimp! They are not that big but are bigger than the other five corals. Those include two that were spotted. Both have a brown/purple base. One has one white spots. The other has blue spots. Then, there is a purple mushroom that I beat up quite a bit trying to get it to stay somewhere as it was not attached to anything (neither was the orange Ricordia and the next two mentioned mushrooms). Finally, there were two regular sorts of mushroom corals; one was brownish and one green. I had to just set them on the rock loose even though the current may move them because they have nothing attached to them!

A week later, and the new mushrooms are all doing well. The loose ones have anchored (not strongly though).

2. Polyp corals - Seven arrived. They were supposed to send five polyp corals of mixed types. Two of the pieces were tiny and obviously broke off the bigger pieces of live rock. I was worried I would not get any zooanthids. Well, all but one were zooanthids! I thought they would send some yellow colony polyps which I wanted and star polyps. I did not want more star polyps unless they were a color other than green. What I did get was one larger green button polyp while the others were all green zooanthids (at least the ones that opened that day; some have yet to open). Each one or two inch rock only has two to ten zoo polyps on it, not a lot. I epoxied the two small frags in my 12 gallon tank. The four biggest pieces were epoxied in the 6 gallon tank while one was set loose near the bottom. It was hard finding places for all of them. The corals are kind of crowded along with the mushrooms but they are all slow growing and non-aggressive.

A week later, two of the zooanthid colonies are fully open during the day and doing well. One has just one polyp that opens! Another had one that opened the first few days but has had none since them open at all. The button polyps have four heads. It took about five days but two of them finally opened. The other two heads separate from the other two have released some slime; I think they died.

I think my tanks are all coraled out now! I am sure I will be moving some of the new corals around especially the mushrooms which are not anchored.

The photos on my reef photos page show the entire tank so there are coral photos on that page too which is now split in to my 6 and 12 gallon nano tanks.

Photos are listed from oldest to newest. Photos are in the 12 gallon nano tank unless otherwise noted.

These photos are all from 5/25/08.

The two mushroom corals and the LPS coral (bottom left) - nice algae crop too!
The star polyps opened
A view farther back - shows Nemo the clowfish as well as the three previously mentioned corals
A view farther back - shows all the corals
A view farther back - shows Nemo the clowfish as well as the three previously mentioned corals
The sagging mushrooms and closed LPS coral
The zooanthids - that is as far as they have opened but they do close up more at night which seems to indicate that they are still alive. There are some red algae branches with them.

Here are some photos from 5/31/08:
Zooanthids and live rock - note the bubbles on the live rock; that is nitrogen gas from the live rock trapped under sheets of dead diatoms (I took a toothbrush to it after the photo). The scarlet reef hermit crab is also at the top of the photo.
Zooanthids after cleaning (so they are not quite as open as they get). I wish you could see the little feather duster worm too (he is at the bottom middle of the colony)! You can see the green piece of macroalgae? at the top left of the colony.
Star Polyps

Here are some photos from 6/13/08:
Star Polyps - also one of the scarlet reef hermit crabs on the left, coralline algae at the top of the photo, note how I overdid the reef epoxy to hold the polyps on!
Zooanthids plus the macroalgae and two feather duster worms that are growing on the colony, note all the bubbling algae again

These photos from 6/16/08, I took the day I got the corals. That means that the sun coral and star polyps were fully closed, and the Duncan LPS coral was half closed.
New zooanthids - green and orange ones!
New corals - the star polyps (closed in the back), Duncan LPS coral (partially open, front left), and the SPS coral (right). Jose is also in the photo.
New mushroom coral
New sun coral

I took more photos on 6/17/08 with the corals open.
Entire tank - the star polyps are open.
New corals - the star polyps (in the back), Duncan LPS coral (front left), and the SPS coral (right). Jose's rear is also in the photo.
Zooanthids

This photo from 6/21/08 shows both colonies of star polyps and the Duncan coral. The SPS is barely visible since it lays flat.
Corals

These photos are from 6/28/08:
Corals - Duncan coral on the right, big star polyps on the upper left, little star polyps at the bottom, nice coralline algae above them, SPS in the background, zebra hermit crab posing too!
Corals - view of the same corals and other animals (hermit crab, an Astraea snail, and Nemo) from the front of the tank.
Corals - top view of the same corals, a totally different perspective!

These photos are from 7/4/08:
Animals - starting from the upper left and going clockwise, you can see part of Jose, the big star polyps, the SPS coral, the Duncan LPS coral, the smaller star polyps with coralline algae above them and the little dwarf zebra hermit crab, and Nemo.
Star polyps - the older batch of star polyps with the dwarf zebra hermit crab.

From 7/6/08:
Dead brain coral - part of the live rock I put in my 3 gallon tank.
Xenia
Pineapple brain coral

From 7/12/08:
Zooanthids and Xenia
Corals - Duncan on the right, star polyps on the left and bottom left, other corals in the background.
Duncan LPS coral

From 7/14/08:
Sun coral - polyps open
Mushroom coral with hermit crabs visiting
Zooanthids - with a hermit crab visitor nearby too.

These photos from 7/19/08 show some new developments:
Baby coral - new "heads" on the Duncan coral coming out.
Star polyps spreading - they have now affixed themselves to the live rock. I took the photo when they were closed because you cannot see the spread well when they are open.

From 7/29/08, I took these photos because of the strange growth (turned out to be macroalgae):
Zooanthids and Xenia
Zooanthids

From 8/2/08:
Zooanthids and Xenia

My first coral in my new 6 gallon nano reef was added on 8/12/08:
Mushroom Coral

From the 12 gallon tank on 8/15/08:
Zooanthids - the bottom colony which now has Caulerpa macroalgae growing in it too.

On 8/30/08, I moved the SPS coral over near the older zooanthids and away from the green star polyps that were stinging it.
Corals - moved SPS coral on the left, older zooanthids (closed up, just did a water change) in the front, xenia in the back right.

Top view of the 6 gallon tank showing the mushroom coral on 9/20/08.

Duncan coral and others on 9/20/08 in the 12 gallon tank. You can see how the Duncan coral now has "babies" all around its base. In the photo can also be seen (but not well) the two colonies of green star polyps, the brain coral, the SPS coral, and Nemo in the back left corner.

These photos are from 10/4/08 when I got the coral packs:
Seven polyp coral rocks during drip acclimation. None of the polyps are open. The eighth rock had no coral but was put in to the six gallon tank anyway.
Seven mushroom corals during drip acclimation.
6 Gallon Tank after the new corals were added. The next four photos are also in the 6 gallon tank.
Two of the polyp rocks in place in the bottom of the 6 gallon tank. There is also a sexy shrimp in the photo.
Green Ricordia mushroom
White speckled mushroom and a sexy shrimp
Zooanthids and sexy shrimp.
Zooanthids in 12 gallon (just a little piece).

This is a top view of the 6 gallon tank on 10/6/08 showing the new mushroom corals:
Mushroom corals

This front view of the 6 gallon tank on 10/10/08 is not very clear. It shows some of the new corals and Grabby (emerald mithrax crab) on top of the live rock:
New corals

From 10/11/08:
New corals - top view of 6 gallon tank
6 Gallon Tank from the front.
New corals - front view; the button polyps are open; the green Ricordia mushroom looks nice.