Montipora capitatais a distinctive species of coral which can have a very dynamic appearance depending on where it comes from. This wide rangingMontiporaspecies is one of the dominant stony corals of Hawaiian coral reefs where it is very common but it can be also be found as far south as French Polynesia and as far west as Indonesia and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.
There are many species of ‘bumpy montis’ with well developed nodules that give the coral a very interesting and the complex texture and uniform ‘verrucae’ ofMontipora capitatagive it the common name of rice coral. Like many widely distributed corals there is a lot of variability in how this coral can look based on geography but one feature that we love about this coral is that it can develop the three main attributes of differentMontiporaspecies – branching, encrusting and plating – all in the same colony!
某些菌落可能主要是包裹,主要是镀板,或主要是分支,但是在某些环境中,所有三种生长形式都可以在同一菌落内表达,即使在仅几英寸的范围内也可以表达。在非常明亮的眼睛中,您会看到Montipora capitatagrow mostly as branches, in dim light it will tend to grow into a scroll shape more like a classic Monti cap but there’s an intermediate light level which will stimulate this interesting combination of differentMontiporaspecies.
The only catch about enjoying these range of growth forms is that you won’t be able to appreciate it as a frag or a puny colony, but if you give it some room to grow and blossom you’ll be rewarded with an eye catching mass of stony corals. TheMontipora capitata水稻珊瑚is not intensely colorful as it is usually light brown, sometimes tending towards a more olive coloration, and more rarely a bright green with matching colored polyps which can trend towards blueish towards the branch tips and growth margins.
There are a lot of different branchingMontiporaspecies but the way thatM. capitatadevelops light colored tips to its branches that are decked out in bumpy nodules can greatly resemble anAcropora,especially as a frag. The bumpy branches of the rice coral are highly reminiscent of the radial corallites of Acropora corals but the lack of a defined axial corallite gives this coral away as a species of closely related蒙蒂波拉。
虽然米饭珊瑚不会赢得任何颜色比赛,但其动态增长形式和非常强壮的性质使其成为一个非常简单的水族馆珊瑚,并且是各种珊瑚礁水族馆设置的绝佳入门SP。在充满超级巨星的坦克中,您总是需要一些支持演员,并且其快速生长和可变的菌落外观米饭珊瑚Montipora当然是一种经典的珊瑚应力,可以留意。