Montipora aequituberculata Scroll

Obtained March 11th, 2000 from Jim Fox (aka MiNdErAsR). This is a small fragment of a Yellow Scroll Coral which is about 1.5 inches tall and 1 inch wide. This coral will grow in a circular pattern and form layers of circular growth. The coral as pictured is just resting in a crack in the rock. I’ve since had to mount it with epoxy to prevent the coral from falling over in the current.

This shows the same frag just 5 months later. It it a very fast grower. Oddly, the coral as changed color in my tank. I suspect its from my lighting. The tank this frag came from had the same bulbs and wattage as I do, but we use different ballasts.

An extreme close-up of the polyps on this coral.

This coral was totally lost during January 2001 from being overgrown by hair algae. I removed the entire skeleton. A few polyps were left where the base had encrusted. 9 months later it looks better than the original colony I had. The color difference happened when I removed my IceCap electronic ballast and replaced it with a PFO ballast. The IceCap ballast just plain suck for metal halides. The ballast under drives the bulbs. This is the color the coral should have, as you can see its returned to the color of the original frag.

This picture is just 2 months since the previous picture and just over 10 months since it was started over. Behind the coral is a Sailfin Tang who usually hides from the camera.

This picture reflects 3 months worth of growth. It was starting to overgrow the derasa clam that was next to it. This coral was traded back to the LFS for some dry goods.

This is the first colony of M. aequituberculata which is the same coral pictured thee above. This picture shows 6 months worth of growth. This coral has outgrown its spot. You can see it trying to overgrow the anemone which its loosing, its trying to overgrow the Psammocora contigua which it is also loosing against, and it is trying to reach the front glass which I keep trimming back with my algae magnet. Hopefully it will get the hint and start growing more upwards and not so much outwards.

To get a view of how big the first colony is I took this side profile picture. It is just short of 7 inches tall. To the left side you can see the engineer gobie poking his head out of his hole. The shade created by the coral has created locations where tiger tail cukes and sea stars wait out the day.

Compare this picture to the picture two images above and you can see some impressive growth rates. In the center of the coral you can see a bunch of frags. I have to bash the front of this coral now with an algae cleaner magnet to prevent it from growing onto the front glass.

A beautiful view from above.