Am I a Blasto?

[braddo]

We are having some trouble pinning down one of our corals. Originally we thought it was some type of Favia but now we have seen some pictures online of Blasto Merletti that are very similar to our mystery coral. We do have other Blasto Merletti in our tank and they dont look too much alike. Can anyone help us?

This is our mystery colony is about the size of a baseball and each head is about 3\4" diameter.

This is what our Blasto Merletti look like.

 

[matts125]

that is indeed a blasto! i have the same type in my tank....

 

[braddo]

Wow that was fast! Thanks for helping us out.

 

[mercedes]

wow that was super fast! thanks matt!

 

[loohunter]

that is indeed a blasto! i have the same type in my tank....

ditto

 

[tike]

Wow that was fast! Thanks for helping us out.

Yeah we pride ourselves on that!

 

[loohunter]

i was checking out your reef site and i noticed you might want to bump your salinity to 1.025

 

[returnofsid]

with 3/4" diameter heads...would this be a Blasto merletti or Blasto wellsi?

 

[jake65]

My guess would be a B. Wellsi

 

[returnofsid]

I think the main difference is in the polyp size.

 

[dnjan]

Not only polyp size, but skeletal structure. B. merletti has more of a branching structure (like a mini-candycane coral), while B. wellsi is more of a massive skeleton.

It would be hard to identify that coral in the picture as a B. merletti without seeing the skeleton. However, a 3/4" wide polyp would be 50-100% larger than my similarly-coloured B. merletti.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Just from size alone, I'd say wellsi. Very nice shot!

 

[Skimmy]

Dnjan has it right on the nose. post a pic of it closed up so that we can see the skeletal structure. looks like a b. merletti to me and i have seen said species with polyps which expand that larfe but i've seen wellsi that look just like that, color/pattern/spacing-wise. my dime's on merletti though.

 

[morgan]

by polyop size and the fact that u thought it was a favid i would say b.wellsi easy because i dont think u would have mistaken the branch structur of b.merletti with a favid

 

[braddo]

Thanks for all the help, I will have to get another look at the coral to better judge the polyp size. The 3\4" estimate was just an off the top of my head guess from what I remember but I do believe most of the heads are 1\2" - 3\4". The coral doesn't appear to have any branching structure, the polyps appear to be sprouting from a common base. Also the polyps don't close up enough to see underneath them. At night there is about a 1\8" gap between polyps. Although now that I think about it I guess I could pick up the colony and flip it over to see underneath....

Does the texture of the polyp itself lend any indication to the type? The ones I am talking about have very short tentacles as you can see from the picture. However the other Blastos we have which I believe are Merletti have smaller polyps and longer tentacles. Our merletti almost appear to be miniature versions of our Dendros.

 

[Dr. Dee]

Very nice Blasto I have one like that also.