looking for instances of this sps hybrid

treesprite

Reefing newb
Hi All,

I have been communicating with Steve Tyree (and Bob Fenner via Wet Web Media) about my Tyree LE Idaho Grape Monti, since tiny pieces of it started growing green polyps, after I had scraped and chipped the IG monti off of my liverock to clear real estate (hence open wounds allowing opportunity for foreign DNA to get in).

The conjecture is, that this may well be a unique coral, and that these green polyps are arising out of hybridization with green pocillopora.

I am trying to find other instances of this naturally occurring hybrid, to determine rarity and to compare notes with anyone who has witnessed this hybridization of these two specific corals.

The first coral is a Tyree LE Idaho Grape Montipora Undata. My frag came from John Coppolino who got his parent from Reeffarmers when the coral was first distributed.

The second is (suspected) to be green pocillopora. This is such a common coral that I can't get more specific. I got frags from 2 different WAMAS members, so I am not sure which of them would have been the source of the DNA, and do not know the ancestry.

Please provide information! Thank you!
 
Hello and Welcome!

I havent heard of that happening to anyone on this forum, but it sounds really cool and Id love to see a picture! Start a tank showcase thread as well, i bet you have a stellar tank!
 
Hello and welcome to the site...I too would like to see the progress of the coral hybrid. This is truly an advanced step in this hobby.
 
Thanks for the welcomes! This appears to be one of the friendlier forums - some just jump right onto the scientific debates without first saying hello to a stranger. I can kind of understand them doing it because this is such a hardcore field, but it is SO NICE to feel warm and fuzzy!

I'm posting the following info which is made up of responses to people on other forums (I joined a bunch just for the purpose of investigations regarding this coral - quite an endeavor for sure):



A lot of people are referring to a montipora capricornis that is purple with green polyps - Idaho grape is an undata species, not capricornis.

For Clarification:
I used the word hybrid as a general term, not restricted to the combination being genetic (didn;t realize that in this field, it is restricted to genetics). There is uncertainty as to just how these two corals got combined.

Grafting is, to the best of my knowledge, when two different corals which, through the lack of aggression, blend together to create a chimera. What I have is a coral with the characteristics of two different species, giving the impression of something that is neither one of them. My coral's new growth areas do not have the tiny lavender polyps of the Idaho grape monti, they have polyps that appear identical to the larger fluorescing green polyps of pocillopora. If it was only the color of the polyps that are different, or only the size, or if these polyps were not growing synchronously with, and on, the monti's new growth areas in absence of the polyps that one would expect, I would have a different view. A free-floating polyp can graft to another species, but if new coral growth comes from them, it would be the same coral as the polyp came from, which would presumably create a chimera.

The new growth areas are describes above - it has the characteristics of two different corals to look like a third. I have read of this happening in nature, as a matter of genetics.

Idaho grape is undata species, not capricornis. It seems a lot of people make that mistake.

My pieces are very tiny, as they are bits that were chipped and scraped off of my main rock structure when I was trying to clear real estate after removing a colony. I have pictures, but they aren't great due to the size of the pieces and a camera that is only 10 megapixels. I'll send updated pictures to Steve when there has been more growth, or when someone with a better camera can take pictures for me, so I can get some more feedback from him.
 
My tank is far from stellar! It's a mess right now - I had really nice aquascaping, but then had a big mishap and had to re-do all of it... can't get it to look so nice again. The mishap left me with deaths and a nitrate spike. I had to take apart my plumbing because a fish got in the sump where I couldn't reach it, and now have a micro bubble problem I can't seem to resolve (which makes pictures look bad). I'm not happy enough now to take pictures of it :(
 
Welcome!!
We'd love to see it anyway... I think the majority of us have felt this was about our tanks at one point or another.
 
Here are some pictures of the coral. They aren't very good, but good enough to distinguish the polyps. The chip of coral on the frag plug is only 3/8" - they are all very small. The green polyps are very bright green in person, but I was having to hold the coral up and the light wasn't right. Also, the polyps on the single chip are not extended... the polyps on the picture that has a bunch of chips on a rock, are extended so you can see the size difference.

Compare normal polyps in main area of coral chip, to the weird polyps in the new growth area around the edges. The color is washed out... as already stated, the polyps are very bright green in person.
B-8-23-11.jpg

Green polyp up close (it's bright green in person, and it isn't fully extended due to m handling it - in person it looks more like a poci polyp, though there's no way to know for certain what kind of polyps they are)
A-8-23-11.jpg

Several chips on a small rock. Some of the weird polyps are circled. This pic you can see the obvious size difference of the polyps when extended (more than on the single chip in the other pictures). Also, this shows that multiple pieces are affected, it's not a matter of a single coral piece touching something else.
C-8-18-11circ.jpg
 
It almost has a cyphastrea look about it. Similar to a "Meteor Shower Cyphastrea" if you want to google it for a reference, not speaking about coloration obviously but the structure is similar.
 
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