Bruce's Reef

[Brucey]

Thanks guys . . . . is so nice to get such praise from you guys and as you all know, makes all the hardwork worthwhile.

Mike (mps) No axial corrallite eh. I'm so useless at coral id. Thanks bud. Much appreciated.

Playa . . . . yeah, I think the coraline is as gorgeous as any coral in the tank. beauty springs from everywhere I guess even when we're not expecting it.

Curt . . . . Yep the Birdmouth is a fantastic fish and if you can live without the Crab cleanup crew I see no reason why one can't be kept in a reef. There just gorgeous

BigR. Hey thanks dude. Yep, the R1 is second only to the Reef but still forms a large part of my life but no where near as much money . . . . :-)

Hey Maxx . . . how you doing bud. Baby Drew is amazing and your correct, yes, he is keeping us up at night. Must get those moonlights installed for those 4AM feeds. :-)

BigT. Where were you stationed bud (town or city). £10 = 18.4255 USD. LOL. Got my conversion rates the wrong way around.

Take care all
Brucey

[Maxx]

Originally posted by Brucey
What i was actually buying that day was this little peice. I'm not even sure of an id. I think it's a monti but I can't make up my mind if it's branching, bunching or plating. Anyway, I just loved the rusty colour to it.

Brucey,
maybe this is a Montipora confusa.......as per Reef Science...

HTH,
Nick

[Brucey]

Hey Nick. Good on ya bud . . . . . but I can't hit that URL. I've checked in DNS and the DNS name is not known either . . . . weird ?????

Brucey

[Maxx]

Hmmm..... the link and the pic were there last night, I double checked the link too.
I just tried accessing their site, and got no love there...I'm guessing that they are busy uploading new stuff to the website and that might be why its down.....I'll keep checking on it though.
Nick

[big t]

Hey Brucey,

I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall, near Newmarket and Cambridge from may 97- may 02. It was a great 5 years, and I have been back to visit a couple times already. My wife is British and misses it quite a bit. This year instead of going there for a visit we are meeting the family in Thailand, so that should be pretty cool!

[Craig Manoukian]

Brucey, very nicely done, a true artisan.

LPS2 looks almost like an SPS or softie to me. Can you snap a closer picture? TIA

[Brucey]

Hi Craig . . . LPS2 is a Gonipora. I've had it about 16 months now and is gorgeous . . . . although it has lost it's dark red colour and as you can see is more of a pink these days

To be honest I do have some corals that I don't know what they are and I'm not brilliant at id'ing them as follows

:- SPS5 i always thought was a Montipora but I'm just starting to learn about the axial coralites on Acropora's and that looks like them to me but hey, I'm just starting to learn.

:- SPS11 I have no idea as with SPS12 shown below. Any help from anyone and I'd owe you a beer

:-)
Brucey

[Michael_Lambert]

Wow!

AMAZING!

[Craig Manoukian]

Thanks for the clarification Brucey! Couldn't recognize the gonipora from the photo. How big is it, it looks huge? How long have you had it?

TIA

[mps9506]

Originally posted by Brucey

:- SPS11 I have no idea as with SPS12 shown below. Any help from anyone and I'd owe you a beer

Wh is really important IMO with the ID is that you know the genus and growth form to make sure you give proper condtions, it gives you an idea of where it would be found in the wild.
SPS 12 appears to be Acropora sp. of some type. It's what I would call "bushy", bottlebrush gorwth form. Not sure what Veron classifies this growth as (the correct way).
For a guess on the species I would say A. polystoma
Could be any number of species however.

Here is a good online source for some acro species identification: http://www.reeffrontiers.com/photos_...=502&password=

The whelks page is great also http://whelk.aims.gov.au/coralsearch/coralsearch.php

Hope that helps a little.

[Maxx]

Hi Craig . . . LPS2 is a Gonipora. I've had it about 16 months now and is gorgeous

He's had it longer than the norm, thats for sure!
Nick

[Brucey]

Craig . . . Nick. Yeah, of course there are a lot of ethical debates about the validity of keeping Gonipora in the enclosed environment as they normally tend to die after a short period of time. I would not normally buy Gonipora from a LFS but this came from an aquarium that was being broken down and was being left in the hands of a LFS that I do not put much faith in keeping corals alive . . . . they run very high nitrates in their display tank. I believe the previous owner had it for 6 months before me. I have also heard from various sources that the Red variety tend to be hardier than most. Craig, it's about 8" across and 5" deep. You can see it on the very first page at the bottom towards the left. It recieves no supplementary feeding, but is in good "variable" current and recieves a mixture of 10'000K and 14'000K MH lighting.

Mike. Thanks for the Id. My biggest hole in my reefing knowledge is my coral id's. As with most people I know a lot of the common names but not the latin names. My Borneman Aquarium Corals book is trying to remedy that. :-)
Brucey

[mps9506]

That is one of the best books you can buy regarding captive coral care and identification.
If you want to get more into species identification look into Veron's Corals of the World. There is a primer on Acropora species identification on Reef Central on Eric Borneman's Coral Forum. He shows the proper way to ID a coral, and even with that method you have a chance of being wrong
That's why I call my corals names like, Mike's fancy hairy green acro, Mike's super scooby brown acro
I can guess at the ID's but they might be wrong. But like I said, knowing the family is very important and the genus is generally important.
Mike

[Brucey]

Originally posted by mps9506
That's why I call my corals names like, Mike's fancy hairy green acro, Mike's super scooby brown acro

Nice one Mike. LOL. I'll try and follow that naming convention
Brucey

[mps9506]

the super brown is super rare by the way. Never seen a shade of brown like it