ID Please...Palm Tree Coral???

[chuckdallas]

When we bought this soft coral right before Thansgiving & the owner at the LFS said it was a "Palm Tree Coral." The little white "heads" are about 1/2 inch long and white. He said that this coral sheds the heads and grows new ones. All of the heads fell off by Sunday (yesterday) and there's a minutely thin white film that is "flaking off" the arms leading to the heads. I have heard that Leather Corals "shed" so I'm not overly concerned right now.

Water:
I have 0-0.1 Ammonia, 0 nitrites, nitrates are 10 on the "high scale" or 1.0 on the "low scale" (Red Sea test kit card has high scale numbers on the left of the color comparison bars and low scale numbers on the right). Alk is 11 dKH, pH is 8.2 - 8.4 during the midday, calc is 400 and mag was 1180 when I tested it 2 days ago. Phosphates are a little high at 0.1, so I'm using two 150 gram bags of Phosban in the bottom of the Wet-Dry sump until the BRAND new Algae Turf Scrubber kicks in (installed it yesterday at 2 pm). I tried another Mag test yesterday but the color never changed from the beginning color (pinkish red) to the end color (dark blue), staying only purple using the Red Seas Mag Test Kit, so I thought I'd wait another day and test today.

The heads look more like pineapples than palm trees, since we never saw the heads "open" up like a palm tree. I can't find any pictures on the Interent of this coral and I want a second opinion about how to care for this one. Please help. 120 gallon DT and 20 gallon sump.

[Bretts05jeep]

that is an awsome coral, never seen one like that

[zachfishman]

I don't remember exactly what it's called (devil's hand, devil's finger...) but I believe it is a non-photosynthetic species that needs regular feeding. I'd start with the same care methods as for sun corals and/or carnation corals.

[noahm]

It is a colonial tunicate, not a coral. The heads are the colonies. Blue palm, Blue lollipop, etc. Basically, consider it a temporary guest as they are not know to survive long, but they sell because they look cool. It may last a while though if conditions just happen to be right.

Nephtheis or Oxycorynia
here's an old thread
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...d.php?t=671467

[Runfrumu]

thats a tunicate. I think it's called a blueberry tunicate. I don't think their survival rate is very good either.