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Soft Corals
Soft corals are most often refered to as corals that have a soft or leathery feel to them. They do not have a 'hard' calcium skeleton but do utilize small amounts of calcium, called spicules, to give themselves some rigidity. Their polyps vary in size and some are retractable whereas others are not.
Soft corals require medium to slightly high water flow. There are two reasons for this;
Leather corals tend to produce a occasional smooth mucous coating ( which aids in cleansing themselves ) that is shed after one to two weeks and flow helps them 'slough' this coating.
Soft corals ( Cladiella and Nephthea sps. corals in particular ) are very sensitive to their surrounding neighbors and when threatened will retract and produce heavy amounts of mucous for protection. This mucous if not swept away can encourage bacteria or protozoan infections that can cause the demise of the coral. Lighting requirements vary from simple flourescents to strong metal halide. When adding new soft corals determine what light intensity the coral was under previously and after an acclimation period slowly increase the intensity
Leather Coral
Toadstool Leather Coral
Sarcophyton sp.
Central stalk supports a wide oral disk that is covered with small polyps. Individual polyps vary in size, length, and color.
Toadstool Leather Coral
Sarcophyton sp.
Central stalk supports a wide oral disk that is covered with small polyps. Individual polyps vary in size, length, and color.
Milk, Leather Coral
Sarcophyton sp.
Central stalk barely supports a wide oral disk that is covered with small polyps. Individual polyps vary in size, length, and color.Finger Coral
Finger Soft Coral
Sinularia sp.
Sturdy base divides outwards to form finger like branches that are covered with small polyps. Individual polyps vary in size, length, and color.
Finger Coral
Sinularia sp.
Sturdy base divides outwards to form finger like branches that are covered with small polyps. Individual polyps vary in size, length, and color.

Part II

Colt, Soft Coral
Cladiella sp.
Fluid like body dividing into branches. Depending on flow the shape can be short and bushy, or elongated and feathery. Polyps are concentrated at the ends of the branches.
Green Soft Coral
Nephthea sp.
Smooth body with elongated branches. Polyps are generally short and concentrated at the ends of the branches. Famed for its 'green' color, supposely this coral is no longer easily available due to effects of ElNino in the wild.

You wouldn't happen to know what kind this is, would you?

It looks likes some sort of alvepora.....or Goni.....

It does...But it isn't. Definitely a leather...nothing stoney about this beast. Maybe I'll give it a special "LE" name if nobody knows what it is. I've posted in in 4 forums and everyone says it looks like goni, but nobody knows what it is. "Mr.Firemouth" over at Uberfrags thinks its a Sarco, but I've never seen one that looks like this.

Gonna hit my coral guide tonight.....Of course it won't be till 9 tonight!

So...it feels like a leather, and everything?

it looks like a toadstool, just the polyps are really cool and different looking than some of the others, the stalk and the parts on the head where there are no polyps are the places that i am looking at cuz those look like one of the common toadstools, the polyps also look like toadstool polyps it just has a really cool funky design on them, thast what i think

Really nice coral wahtever it is