Green Pipe Organ Coral (Tubipora musica)

The pipe organ coral continues to do great. The polyps are closely packed and the coral is slowly encroaching on the plug it came on.

Some excellent growth with this coral. The color has started to come through as well.

More growth.

More growth on the pipe organ coral. The color isn't really that green though.

The pipe organ coral continues to grow.

In spite of my return-pump clogging up and leaving the tank without circulation for a few days, the green pipe organ coral seems to be making a recovery. The polyps don't appear to be very green yet though.

The Pipe Organ Coral is a tricky-to-keep soft coral that closely resembles Green-Star-Polyp when viewed from above. It is susceptible to a number of infections when stressed or damaged. These include "brown jelly disease", bacterial infections, and predatory nudibranches.

Pipe Organ Coral is often mistaken for a stony-coral because of it's red calcium-carbonate skeleton. However, it's polyps have eight tentacles - a trait typically associated with Gorgonians and other soft corals.

This specimen did not do well in shipping at all. I have not seen a single polyp emerge yet and I am not sure if it is still alive or not. I will give it a few weeks to see if it recovers before removing it.

I have categorized it under long-polyped-stony (LPS) corals here just because this is the way most hobbyists think of them. The SPS/LPS/Soft Coral categorization scheme has been abandoned by professional taxonomists in any case.