Would this be considered "rare"?

[garagebrian]

Hey all,

I have 3 hitchhiking LPS corals on my TBS rock. Tentatively ID'd as Manicina areolata, but it could be any number of closely related species. As far as I know you can only get them of aqua-cultured LR from Florida, TBS being the only one I have found other customers from that got them. They are a protected species in the wild, so aqua-culture is the only way to get them.

Here is the prettiest one under natural light:

Same coral under actinics:

Another one under actinics:

My other one under 10K, fighting for space with another unknown coral:

Has anyone else seen these? If so, what was the source?

Brian

 

[Anonymous]

Dunno if they're rare or not but I certainly would pay a lot for this guy:

That's an amazing color. Unlike any 'brain' I've seen.

 

[garagebrian]

Yeah, I'm super excited I got that guy. I'm going to be feeding it like crazy to see if it will split or do a polyp extrusion, but I'm much too scared to frag it.

B.

 

[Anonymous]

There are sources for them:

http://aquatouch.com/live_stock.htm

FYI aquaculture is usually used for stuff grown in tanks, maricultured is the term your looking for IMO.

 

[garagebrian]

Thanks for the info GreshamH, yes maricultured should be the correct term. So does anyone else here own these corals?

B.

 

[jusreefin]

Looks similar to Symphyllia. Sweet piece!

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, those came in as HH on TBS rock? I gotta get some of that. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Very cool. I just sold my whole tank, along with a big bit of live rock with a 45 polyp colony of acanthastrea on it. The price for the whole lot was probably less than that colony would have had gone for in the US at the height of the craze. Thing is, of course, that they're common as muck here and cheap as chips and it came as a free HH.

Very cool hitchhikers and very interesting. Certainly rare to the hobby I'd imagine, though how rare they are in the wild I'll leave to an expert to comment on.

 

[garagebrian]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Burntom,

Yeah, I'm trying to locate other people that have these hitchhikers, just curious to see how many owners of these are out there and on the web.

My ultimate hope is to find someone who knows how to encourage them to spawn or possibly reproduce asexually.

My understanding is that they are declining in the wild (hence the protection), but not endangered yet.

Brian