Help identify this type of scolymia and background info

[seldin]

I got this form of scolymia. It is different than some of the scolymias I have seen and have because the mouth opens up tremendously and in addition this scoly "balloons" during the day to 6 inches wide and about 2 inches tall.

It is much prettier than the picture. It is colored green with looking like it has a powered white doughnut look. Or maybe it's different, just because it is so large. I am interested in it's background. It is very fun to watch, since it balloons to such an extreme and feeds so easily.

Here is a picture:

Thank you,

 

[marrone]

This is the more traditional Scolymia that you would usually find in the market place, before the smaller more colorful ones became popular. They do get very big and spread out quite a bit, which is why most people keep them on the sand. They have a big mouth, which you can feed at night.

You're going to need to give it some room, as they do grew pretty big.

 

[prattreef]

These have recently been reclassified as Acanthophyllia and no longer carry the Scolymia name.

 

[seldin]

Marrone and Randy,

Thank you for the info.

Are the Acanthophyllia types of corals different from Scolymia's because of the much wider open mouth. Also, do the scolymia's stay smaller than these corals.

It was funny because when I purchased it, it looked much smaller and after a few days, it just ballooned. I guess it likes my tank.

 

[jaa1456]

Some stores sell them as Acans and others still as Scoly's , you might even see them sold as donut corals also.

 

[marrone]

There are a number of different Scolymia, and now Acanthophyllia. If you do a search you'll see all the different ones that are out there, and Cynarina are also something included in this group. Most of the times the only way of telling what you actually have is to kill the coral and look at the skeleton.

You'll find these corals also called Meat or Donut corals. The one you have gets very big and does take a lot of space up. There was a picture of one one RC that was huge. It took up the whole top of his tank. It was so big he would pick it up by the flesh and hold it.

 

[prattreef]

The Acanthophyllia's inflate tremendously when happy--something that true Scolymias don't do to nearly the same extent. How the taxanomic distinction is drawn I'd have to leave to others to explain--Taxonomy is a complicated, and highly specialized field, based largely as Marrone indicates on examination of skeletal remains.