Pachyseris, Pavona, Merulina or something else?

whatcaneyedo · #1 02-28-2011, 01:17 AM

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 · #2 02-28-2011, 03:23 AM

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

H2o2 · #3 02-28-2011, 03:55 AM

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

ScubaSteve · #4 02-28-2011, 07:58 AM

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 · #5 03-01-2011, 01:06 AM

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 · #6 03-01-2011, 01:20 AM

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.