Lance, the stuff in the upper background of the Rhodactis pic is dead coral. It used to be a great big piece of blue coral, which I believe to be exactly what the thing in the bottom pic is.
The guy that sold me the frag in the bottom pic busted up a great big pile of it, he had pics of what it looked like before he destroyed it.

I found a pic of the Rhodactis, and it looks exactly right. Rhodactis cf. Inchoata. It's growing INSANELY fast. It used to look just like the pic I'll post below, but it's a lot different now and much bigger. There's actually three pieces, but there's no way to tell anymore.
Here's what it looked like before it started getting huge...

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That large skeleton in the upper back LOOKS like a potato chip coral, lettuce coral, whatever you like,
just the way the lobes are oriented....Pavona Species anyway. If we are talking about the same thing.
I need to watch the video again to see what it is that you say ?self-fragged? maybe?
Not sure what you were saying. I think Lance can tell you the dangers of Rhodactis. It's like the green
star polyps of the mushroom world, lol.

OK, I looked on the previous page and see now what you are talking about. If that is 'supposed' to be,
or as you put it, smacks of a leather coral, then I think you have a Porites species there. If it is blue, then
that is reaslly something. I wish I had that. They are also tough to keep alive, put em way up top once you
feel it is acclimated, turbid water and MAYBE target feed? They tend to be out much more at night when in
captivity, so if you can't get it eating in the daytime, you may have trouble keeping it alive. This is the
species of coral that you often see called "worm rock", "Christmas-tree worm rock" or "Bisma rock" It's one
of my personal favorites, if in fact that's what it is. Of course the bisma rock is a much different TYPE of porites.
And I only THINK that's what it is, but that's a great pic, btw.
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Brad, go to liveaquaria and look up Montipora. It comes in blue. I have a Porites that was originally a worm rock that the worms all died in but the coral is ten times bigger now. Stupid Rhodactis are always trying to carpet it.
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The Montipora I see available are too spindly to be this, at least IMVUO (very-uninformed-opinion.) haha. I had a green montipora
that I killed, sadlol. But I am going to stick with Porites, just on the clumpy and stubby fingers. Check out Porites at the same site.
See how height is achieved by a larger central clump, where in Montipora, height is achieved by longer fingers FROM the clump.
Now, with the COLOR morph, yes, that gives me pause. I am not sure Porites has a blue color morph....hmm. Couple that with
the fact that didn't Scott say he got it from F & S ?? Not sure they offer anything like what he has in porites. What has me
latched onto porites is the "skin" of the coral, the encrusting part. Porites I have seen, even including bisma rock, has this "microfibery"
looking skin like that.
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Brad, this guy is brown and looks like a leather outside, but he has a rock hard skeleton. His skeleton is blue/white.
That thing that is in the background is just a great big blue/white skeleton that I bought years ago in florida cause it was gorgeous. It ended up in the fish tank cause I got tired of looking at it. :-)
I suppose my insistance that the two are even remotely related is pretty nonsensical and uninformed. I just thought the similarity was cool.
That brown lump I have has little polyps. You can see them. They used to just come out at night. Now they come out more often.
He's currently at the bottom of the tank, I haven't moved him up for lack of a place to put him.
Lisa's trumpet fell down, so now I have a reason to go diving again. I'll reattach it and sit the brown un-named guy up higher. :-)
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So the skin is brown, and where the skin is scraped off, or underneath the base, it is blue/white??
hmmm. This is a mystery. I stick with my theory, but again, I am a seriously under-informed individual
who bases a lot of what I think I know on me thinking I am smarter than I actually am, lol. :-) But
whatever it is, you are lucky to have it. I love mystery corals that go from being pissed off to being beautiful
specimens. If the coral is realtively heavy for it's size, I also vote porites, haha. Mr. broken Record.
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I think you guys might be on track with Montipora, cause I recognize the name.
The outside is brown, you can see the polyps in the pic.
The inside is hard, a beautiful blue/white. I'll get a pic later when I move him.
I got him from a frag swap. The guys have pics of the great big lump it came from, he smashed it all up and had lots of pieces there, along with pics of the mother lump.

Here's the pic again, maybe it'll help...

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I am also thinking the spacing of the polyps may end up being important, porites is more of a carpet of polyps
that are wide and flat, these are more stalked and super widely spaced. I have to admit, I am not sure.
But is is fun guessing and doing something on this slow-a$$ forum.
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Maybe Montipora Digitata?
I have never seen sweeper tentacles at night, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. I can start watching?
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The skeleton my not be it's own. Motipora is like stony star polyp and encrusts whatever it can. It would be lettuce leaflike if it didn't have something else to grow on.

Edit: M. digitata sounds like something that would be branching.
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Got ya, Lance. That'd probably make it Montipora, right?
Mind ya, this was a great big piece before it got smashed. I don't know if that says "grown" or "stole it's host", but it's definately not on rock, it's on coral. (If that helps.)

Brad, the Porites Cylindrica looks a lot like it, too.

From reading, I see it's important to find out what it is to know how to care for it. Aaargh.

This is giving me a headache.
I gotta go hook up my trailer and fetch my motorcycle at the shop. I sure hope you guys come up with something!!! :-)
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AH, it doesn't matter....pretty soon it will be 'my brown coral that I like'. You may find out eventually through
the father of the frag. Wish I was picking up a motorcycle.
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Wow! I think this is it.
Not even SPS. If you look at the polyps and they have 8 symmetrical tentacles then it's an octocoral. This sounds like a cool specimen, if it doesn't try to take over the whole tank. I just sent a bunch of Rhodactis on a ride "in the water park". Wheeee!
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I think you're right, Lance. If I remember corectly, the dead coral in the background that I keep blathering about was called a Blue Ridge Coral when I bought it years ago down in Florida.
The odds of me seeing 8 symmetrical tentacles are slim to none. I'll take a pic with my good camera and CSI it, then I'll be able to count them.
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Our tanks are truly amazing ecosystems.....

My liferock had more than a couple of hitchhikers on it.....What shocks me is the amount of new life which pops up even to this day (I dip my corals, etc; so 99% sure that whatever pops up was in the rock to begin with). Check out this little guy I captured tonight. He was just roaming around the sand - so an easy catch:

Image

Any idea as to what he could be ? He's TINY right now; maybe about the size of a penny. I do recall seeing some larger crabs which looked kinda like him when I first got the LR; judging by their claws I didn't feel like they were 'reef safe' so I sump'd them. Clearly I missed a couple and/or the ones in the sump were doing some XXX activities down there :-)
I moved him down to the sump; as the spots on his back make be believe he's most likely from the xanthidae family.
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He's just a baby by the looks of him, Steve. He could probably turn into anything. Maybe I Sally Lightfoot? Hell, I don't know.

I went to Aquacon in Pittsburgh today. Got some D-T Phyto, some frozen Cyclopeeze, and 10 or 11 little frags out of the cheapo bin. I got a couple decent stalks of Pulsing Xenia, and we're thrilled about it. :-)
I also got a big fat sea hare to do some cleaning. I stopped and got 3 bottles of super glue gel to fix all the stuff he wrecks.
We didn't see any big stuff we liked too much, and everything was covered with bubble algae and anemones. So we just passed on the few things we did like.

My D-D refractometer came today and I'm thrilled with it. It works great and you calibrate it with RODI water. My water was perfect.
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Nice - PICS :-)

I need to get to the LFS today and get some pH calibrating fluid....Lost power two days ago for about 10mins and ever since my pH probe has been way off....I hope to pick up another mini-carpet 'nem they had there last week - looks really nice.
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No pics yet, they're just sitting in the sand. The lights haven't even been on them yet. I'll probably check them for critters again tonight to make sure there's nothing on there that shouldn't be. Then I'll check them a week or so from now.
Everyone gets fed today, and that should pick them up, too. They should be a lot bigger for pics in a real short time. :-)
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Came home tonight to a 'pod explosion ! Everything was jumping around; even the urchin was on the glass (something it never did before).

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink
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That is too cool, Steve. Thank You!!! :-)
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