ORA names and Species Identification

[kidder]

haha - not to hijack or anything... but - who's ready to go halfsies on a greenhouse and some plastic bins so we can start our own coral naming organization :badgrin:

Let's call it CNA (Creatively Named Acros) - I'm sure there's room for some purple periwinkle acros out there on the market

We could set an industry standard and also let people indulge their nerd with the scientific names of things even!

Wish I was good at ID'ing corals so I could have something more advantageous to add to the thread

Sign me up! And if the coral business falls through we'd still have a greenhouse...to "grow" things in...:lol: Wait, what did you guys think I meant?!?!

 

[returnofsid]

LOL Seems I've seen "Periwinkle Acro" on Ebay. Not a bad idea. I've been doing some research into greenhouse coral growing. Anthony Calfo's book has some information on it and there's quite a few very good threads about it on RC....

 

[estanoche]

well I can get my hands on food grade plastic bins too... could set up a gravity fed system, 1 pump and an awesome waterfall all the way down to the low flow corals

haha - now we are getting too detailed this could be incriminating - looks like all the periwinkle acros are sold out on ebay tho - I checked!

 

[brandyrb]

I think naming corals would be fun. I'd want to keep everything I name though. I'm sure I could come up with something more snazzy than "joe the coral", lol.

I looked on ORA's site for the famous employee named Joe, but unfortunately their personel web page is under construction... I'm guessing that he is hairy and green with blue tips though. :razz:

 

[Chichas01]

Someone had a post recently in the forums where he was starting a website that had pics of all the ORA stuff. He was looking for photo contributions and it looked to be more comprehensive than event the ORA site. Anyone recall this?

 

[CarlaW]

You mean this:
http://www.oracorals.com/

 

[returnofsid]

Found this great picture of a Red Planet that's grown up a bit and is starting to showing the Tabling structure that they're known for.

LOL And just for fun, check out this ORA Chips Acro, reminiscent of Cousin It. Wish these were mine!!!

 

[brandyrb]

Here's an article I found on the ORA Red Planet possibly being an Acropora anthocercis.

http://glassbox-design.com/2008/ree...s-wavemaker-bk-releases-the-peppermint-angel/

 

[returnofsid]

It'll be interesting to watch it grow out. A. hyacinthus, which is what I'm leaning towards, and A. anthocercis have a very similar corallite structure, but A. anthocercis seems to point upwards more than A. hyacinthus.

 

[roscoe]

Here's an article I found on the ORA Red Planet possibly being an Acropora anthocercis.

http://glassbox-design.com/2008/ree...s-wavemaker-bk-releases-the-peppermint-angel/

All the RP I've seen does not grow like a Acropora Hyacinthus. The hyacinthus table acro grows shorter branches as it tables out. The ORA RP tables also but the branches are not as uniformed and much longer than Acropora Hyacinthus. I highly doubt it is a hyacinthus and I'm sure it is Acropora anthocercis as stated in the link above.

 

[returnofsid]

Guess we'll have to wait and see...lol. I've found a lot of references to the Red Planet being A. hyacinthus.
Here's the one I remember reading lately, but there's a lot more of them...mainly on RC, of course.
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/general-marine-discussions/8529-red-planet.html

There's even a lot of talk that it's the same coral as the ATL Red Hyacynthus. They do sure appear to be similar. Also, a lot of people experience with the Red Planet is with it losing it's green as it grows. I hope it doesn't.

Either way, I love my Red Planet and can't wait for it to be all growed up.

 

[roscoe]

The ATL red Hyacinthus at least the one I have has no green what so ever. The new growth on them is a nice ice white/bluish color. Either way you are right both corals are very nice!

 

[colleen]

Here's a photo of my Joe the Coral after being in our tank for about a month. The "green" base flesh turned to more of a golden yellow, don't know if it's because the lights are too bright, or maybe not bright enough? It's only at about the mid-point of the tank - found if I put new corals near the top of our system too quickly they bleach out. It's growing well, just morphed color on us.

We have an 8' long 24" deep 270 gallon with 3 Reeflux 10K Mh in Lumen Brite Reflectors and 6 24" T-5 actinics. Bulbs are currently about 16" above the surface of the water but we can adjust them down as close as 8". Bulb above this coral was changed out a couple weeks ago.

Any recommendations as to whether to give more or less light to get more of the green color back? Our Verde did the same thing after adding it, it is a bit lower in the tank, but only by a few inches.

 

[colleen]

Here's a photo of my Joe the Coral after being in our tank for about a month. The "green" base flesh turned to more of a golden yellow, don't know if it's because the lights are too bright, or maybe not bright enough? It's only at about the mid-point of the tank - found if I put new corals near the top of our system too quickly they bleach out. It's growing well, just morphed color on us.

We have an 8' long 24" deep 270 gallon with 3 Reeflux 10K Mh in Lumen Brite Reflectors and 6 24" T-5 actinics. Bulbs are currently about 16" above the surface of the water but we can adjust them down as close as 8". Bulb above this coral was changed out a couple weeks ago.

Any recommendations as to whether to give more or less light to get more of the green color back? Our Verde did the same thing after adding it, it is a bit lower in the tank, but only by a few inches.

DARN -- forgot to attach the darned photo - here it is!

 

[returnofsid]

IMO...the Verde isn't near as light demanding as the Red Planet, although my ORA Verde browned out on me under 150W MHs. I've since moved it to our 75 and it's starting to get it's color back, under all T5HOs.

From all the reading I've done, it's really common for the Red Planet to lose it's green. You don't mention what wattage of MH lighting you have, or what type of flow it's in. I think flow is just as important to the Red Planet as lights. I'd consider moving it up, slowly and into an area with extremely high and random flow.

Just saw the photo you added. Are you sure that's an ORA Red Planet? If so, it seems to have lost a lot more than just it's green. How are the rest of your tank parameters? I'd check your nitrates closely.

 

[colleen]

Here's a photo of my Joe the Coral after being in our tank for about a month. The "green" base flesh turned to more of a golden yellow, don't know if it's because the lights are too bright, or maybe not bright enough? It's only at about the mid-point of the tank - found if I put new corals near the top of our system too quickly they bleach out. It's growing well, just morphed color on us.

We have an 8' long 24" deep 270 gallon with 3 Reeflux 10K Mh in Lumen Brite Reflectors and 6 24" T-5 actinics. Bulbs are currently about 16" above the surface of the water but we can adjust them down as close as 8". Bulb above this coral was changed out a couple weeks ago.

Any recommendations as to whether to give more or less light to get more of the green color back? Our Verde did the same thing after adding it, it is a bit lower in the tank, but only by a few inches.

No it's not a red planet, it's a "Joe the Coral". The bulbs are 400W.

 

[colleen]

No it's not a red planet, it's a "Joe the Coral". The bulbs are 400W.

Forgot to mention we have lots of flow 4 1" seaswirls, 2 3/4" wavy seas, plus 2 5-head 3/4" lockline. Pumps are two 8500 ampmasters, closed loop pump (driving the wavy seas, 2 of the seaswirls, and the two 5-head locline) is running 100% with varied flow using an oceans motions. Other ampmaster is throttled back, running our 2 seaswirl returns, chiller, skimmer, UV, fuge.

 

[returnofsid]

Oh Duh!!! I really shouldn't read and reply to threads right after waking up!!! AND, had I read your signature, I'd have seen that you have 400 watts...lol With you running 400watts, it could be that your corals are getting too much color. That will cause bleaching. ORA corals are pretty adaptable to lighting, but some don't need quite that much light. Sounds like flow isn't an issue at all, so I'd maybe move it down, instead of up, like I advised earlier. Might be getting too much light.

An image search of "ORA Joe the Coral" shows quite a few of these corals where the green has turned to a somewhat yellow color. That's one I don't have yet, so I can't comment on how it does under our T5s.

 

[colleen]

I decided to try moving my Verde down, since it had also lightened up and that one isn't anchored down yet! If it gets some more color back I will go ahead and move "Joe" down as well.

I also accidentally broke most of my purple pillow acro off this morning trying to get a couple frags, so I have remounted the colony that broke off to a lower rock to see if that one developes more color. IWe used to have these same bulbs on our 155 gallon, but the Lumen Bright reflectors are definitely dumping out loads more light so I'm still trying to adjust (as are the corals). Had to give some plates and cyphastrea away last month, the only time they looked happy was when I had them tucked back under a ledge.

Thanks for the help!

 

[returnofsid]

Ahhh just send that broken Purple Pillow on over to me!!!