Pachyseris, Pavona, Merulina or something else?

[whatcaneyedo]

I got this coral as a hitch hiker on the gold tear drop maxima that I bought about 5 years ago. I was very small and encrusted onto one of the scutes so I broke off a section and mounted it to a frag disk. It has now completely encrusted the frag disk and I still don't know for certain what it is. From Borneman's Corals book I've come up with three guesses... any other ideas?

[ALang]

or all of the above?? But seriously, neat looking coral.

[H2o2]

That is nice ,if you ever frag it please count me in

[ScubaSteve]

That's a tough one, especially while it is still this small. You may have to wait a bit to see what growth form it takes to really get the right ID. But...

If it were a Pavona, it's likely a pavona varians. There is also a good chance that it's a merulina... however, it's tough to say right now as both the pavona and merulina start as encrusting and then develop their characteristic shapes later on. I don't think it's a Pachyseris Sp..

Do you have a rough geographical location?

[whatcaneyedo]

I never bothered to ask when I got the clam where it came from. The LFS probably just got it from a wholesaler so that information wouldn't have been available to them.

Agaricia and Leptoseris aren't covered very well in the book but it looks like it could be one of them.

[ScubaSteve]

It does look like Agaricia Sp. but the coenosteum on your frag are too irregular to be Agaricia I think (bu then again the that species is highly variable). The corallites on your frag are more meandroid, which makes me think it's a p. varians.