new to chalices..

[vickreyreef]

HI there

I am just sifting through some of your pictures of your chalices and I see that a lot of people have them very very close to not only each other but also different corals....I have one coming in today and everything I read says you need to keep at least 6" between them and any other corals....is this not really true? Can chalices touch each other? I have a corner tank so the sand real estate is a hot comodity.so if I can leave less space between that would be fantastic...here is a picture of the piece that I just bought...

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s301/jdj125/1-4732.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s301/jdj125/Echinophyllia.jpg

[Emc2]

Yup. Lots of people (including me on occassion) ignore that rule of thumb. Sometimes its not an issue and sometimes its war.

Erin

[mikid]

its an addiction........................:wavehand:

[becact]

Different chalices have different types of sweeper tentacles. For instance, my Tyree Blue colony puts out 3-4" sweepers at night and stings my digitata near by. But most have only very short tentacles near the eyes, so keeping them close is not a problem.

[vickreyreef]

anyone know what the "name" is of the one I posted pictures of above?

[becact]

For every named chalice there are dozens of unnamed ones. Usually at the importers the super duper nice ones get snatched up by the well known coral guys (or the importer knows to call these guys first) to be "named" and thus increase the price tenfold. So usually only the quite rare morphs end up being named.

[vickreyreef]

ahhh gotcha.....thanks everyone!!

[Emc2]

ahhh gotcha.....thanks everyone!!

It's very pretty though.

[Justin74]

Chalice is a lame generic name. Spacing depends on the specie as with any coral collecting, from Mycedium, Oxypora, Echinopora, to Echinophyllia. So far, Im able to keep my Echinophyllia next to Echinopora's, and have watched my Echinophyllia's tenticles slide up and down in full contact with my Echinopora with no harm to either. Some people claim to have problems with mixing Mycedium's and Echinophyllia, though I only have 1 or 2 Mycedium and keep them well away from the rest, so I cant speak from experience on that one..The key is to be able to identify, and keep them within the same company.

-Justin

[becact]

Chalice is a lame generic name. Spacing depends on the specie as with any coral collecting, from Mycedium, Oxypora, Echinopora, to Echinophyllia. So far, Im able to keep my Echinophyllia next to Echinopora's, and have watched my Echinophyllia's tenticles slide up and down in full contact with my Echinopora with no harm to either. Some people claim to have problems with mixing Mycedium's and Echinophyllia, though I only have 1 or 2 Mycedium and keep them well away from the rest, so I cant speak from experience on that one..The key is to be able to identify, and keep them within the same company.

-Justin

Justin, do you have a link to somewhere that could explain the difference visually? I do notice some corals like the Tyree Blue and Hollywood Stunner look very similar and are probably from the same species, while others like the Superman have large protuberances around the eyes, while the rest remains flat or a little spiky. Still others like the BGM are mostly flat but "pimply" with distinct eyes. I'd be interested in being able to call them out by species! I saw a cool thread at RC that explained the different types of acros based on coralite structure.

[Justin74]

Unfortunately one of the best ID sight available is no longer publicly available. http://whelk.aims.gov.au/coralsearch/coralid_search.php
use to be the one stop shop for ID's but still can be purchased on CD and of course the volume set.

Some other helpful sights while not as detailed or consistent:
http://www.coralidea.com/coral.html
http://www.melevsreef.com/id/
http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=482
http://coralpedia.bio.warwick.ac.uk/
http://www.hawaii.edu/coral/coral_id.htm

Hope that helps :)

-Justin

[Emc2]

Corals of the World is a good (but expensive) resource also.

[YoungReefer06]

I work with several dozen chalices of several genera and I will tell you to keep them separated. I keep them with about 3 squares of eggcrate (~1 1/2") between the different specimens.

[vickreyreef]

they can't be directly on the sand, correct? They need to be on rock??

[vickreyreef]

one more quick question...you can kinda see it in the pictures above but here it is again, the side of the chalice has a white line of skeleton...is this anything to be concerned about?
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s301/jdj125/IMG_0650.jpg

[Emoney]

Not really a good pick, but appears to be the "rim" of the chalice and there often different then the main coloration of the chalice.......so dont think you have much to worry about

[becact]

The pale white that is actually part of the living chalice is just new growth. Most corals grow new parts as white.

As for the bare skeleton underneath- even if it was once part of that chalice the rim looks healthy, so it will grow back over that in time. The rim is healthy when it looks like a thick line, like yours looks. When it is receding it is just colored tissue intersecting the skeleton with no lip like that.