Shapes and colors of Tubastrea, skeleton and ID?

[dendro982RC]

Post, please:
- shapes and colors of sun coral,
- visual identification from Tubastrea spp. down to T. coccinea, T. faulkneri, T. aurea and others yellow-orange ones, with references to the sources, of course :rolleyes: ,
- high skeleton and low skeleton sun corals: different species or individual differences; frontal views of skeleton septae pattern - which belongs to which species (all with references too :D ), any difference in care,
- last, but not least: red tubastrea - what is it: species, color morph. food-dependent, dyed, available in/from particular regions? Did they experienced color loss with time? Cost (just curious, red Dendrophyllia will be costly)?

Thanks.

[PawsReef]

Ive been told that this one is T. coccinea which was ID'd by Roger from the internal skeleton.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/sunclosed.jpg
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Suns7.jpg
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Gen2Cut1.jpg
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Gen1Cut4.jpg

I have several others i can post pics of but couldnt really ID them properly for you to be honest.

[dendro982RC]

Do you know, by any chance, what are criteria for identification?
I tried to find on the web, no luck.

One more question: coral was fragged - because the colony had grown big and external polyps became at the bottom of the rock and no longer were able to be fed? My not too old colony do that, and I also was thinking about fragging, but just interested, what they become without human intervention.

What is the shape of biggest colony, that you have? Like we accustomed to see Calaustrea (candycane or trumpet corals) with several heads, and full grown colony is ball shaped - what the sun coral becomes with the time.

[PawsReef]

I actually fragged that one because I only have a small tank and it was being blasted in the flow on one side, not at all on the other, it didnt have enough space to extend where it was sitting and so wasnt able to feed etc properly.

I still have polyps on the edges but find that new polyps grow within the middle and without realising the whole colony grows in size being pushed out rather thanthe edges growing out.

As far as im aware colonies can get pretty big if left, if you have the space id let it grow.

[dendro982RC]

The same with my main colony of the orange tubastrea - the polyps are pushed aside and downwards, facing bottom. Glued additional rock at the bottom on one side so far, to give more encrusting space (encrusting and then building own skeleton).
May be sun corals are meant to be fragged once in two years...

[s1214215]

Hi

You may find this of interest regarding Tubastrea Coccinea and Diaphana. You will need to use a translator for German to English. http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Brett

http://www.korallenriff.de/Sindelfingen200...orsten_2005.pdf

http://archiv.korallenriff.de/tubastrea.html

http://archiv.korallenriff.de/tubastrea2.html

[dendro982RC]

Already done. In my browser, the pdf address has dots inside, here is working url. (http://www.korallenriff.de/Sindelfingen2005/daniela_torsten_2005.pdf)

I have questions about the Daniela Stettler's tank, if you found more, than is in these articles, answer, please, in Details of the Daniela Stettler's tank filtration? (http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=238681) thread.

Only nothing there about identification of the yellow and orange species. Here (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=920732) is information about distinguishing them by the shade of color, and, if anybody knows about specifics of keeping the Cladopsammia gracilis, mentioned there, post them for me. I have very similar coral.

Another color ID information (no skeleton taxonomy involved) is here (http://www.infopez.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&printertopic=1&t=3345&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult), will need translation by any of the search engines language tools.

The skeletal ID, illustrated, was posted here (http://www.planktonreeftech.com/TH/articles/coral/suncoral_taxa.htm), but again, with no links to original sources, and the language in out of the range of automatic translation.

The short text description is in Bishop Museum publication (http://www.bishopmuseum.org/research/pbs/Oman-coral-book/Chap3/CorBkCh3htm.htm), only about differences between Tubastrea and Dendrophyllia, not between yellow-orange tubastreas.

Just curious, who is who between orange tubastreas, and where the tubastreas end and start dendrophyllias. As I has read, the skeleton structure is involved, but any set of clues - color, height of skeleton - is good enough for me.