Montipora

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  Green Montipora Digitata

  This Green Montipora Digitata was one of the author's first SPS corals, purchased in June 1999. It started on a cement plug, was broken off and mounted with epoxy, and has shown excellent growth and coloration over the years, requiring frequent fragging to prevent it from overgrowing neighboring corals like gorgonians.

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  Green Montipora sp.

  This very small Montipora frag was purchased via mail order as green with blue polyps. Despite the author's inability to see significant blue or green coloration, it was placed in the upper third of the display to test if intense lighting would bring out some color.

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  Montipora aequituberculata Scroll

  Obtained March 11th, 2000 from Jim Fox (aka MiNdErAsR), this Yellow Scroll Coral fragment was about 1.5 inches tall and 1 inch wide. It was a fast grower that changed color in the tank (possibly due to different ballasts), was totally lost during January 2001 from hair algae overgrowth, but recovered and looked better than the original colony 9 months later. By February 2002 it was starting to overgrow nearby clams and was traded back to the LFS for dry goods.

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  Montipora sp. Unidentifed Scroll Coral

  Obtained July 23rd, 2001 from Rich Knecht (aka RichK), this very bright Montipora scroll coral has a yellow base with green polyps. It showed excellent growth and coloration over time, eventually overgrowing nearby Porites and Green Montipora Digitata colonies.

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  Orange Encrusting Montipora (Montipora sp.)

  The upper part of the display tank under the center glass has limited room for vertical growth and fairly strong flow rates, making it suitable for encrusting montipora corals. This orange encrusting montipora appears to share a rock with another, less colorful species, with a 'no man's land' between them showing where they compete. Unfortunately, both species bleached and died during April 2006 within a week's time.

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  Orange Montipora capricornis

  Obtained July 23rd, 2001 from Rich Knecht (aka RichK), this Orange Montipora capricornis has a nice bright orange color and was placed on the sand due to limited better locations. It showed impressive growth over the first four months and continued to do fantastic after four more months, though space became limited requiring shuffling of other items.

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  Orange Montipora capricornis

  This Orange Montipora capricornis can be traced to Penn State University's Coral Reef Display and was at least a 5th generation captive-raised coral. After dying off in July 2005 with only a small 1/4 inch patch surviving, it slowly regrew and nearly tripled in size over 3 months, eventually growing to about 10 inches wide and 10 inches front to back before being lost in August 2008.

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  Orange Montipora digitata

  This Orange Montipora digitata has been a fairly slow grower for montipora species. Obtained May 20th, 2000 from Rich Knecht, it gradually encrusted a nice base over its first three months and showed continued, though slow, growth over two years, requiring occasional fragging and often getting shaded by corals positioned higher on the rocks.

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  Purple Encrusting Montipora sp.

  This Purple Encrusting Montipora has been in the display tank since summer, doubling in size over six months. It shows a brilliant pink/purple color under daylight halides and exhibits a striking blue fluorescence when only actinic lighting is used.

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  Purple Montipora digitata

  This is a frag of Montipora digitata commonly called a Velvet Finger Coral from Jim Fox's tank (aka MiNdErAsR).

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  Purple Montipora Plate coral (Montipora sp.)

  - This is a purple unknown species of montipora that was given to me as a small frag.