Bubble without bones

Do you have a link to this study? I'm a little confused as to how they dissolved the skeleton out from under the coral while the coral remained attached to the substrate.
Off to work
EC

I have seen this study- wont look for the link after my last two fails! Its easy to find though.
 
You may be correct that I may have taken your comments too seriously. No hard feelings. I am not confused- just was trying to quickly look for something to apease you.

It's all good.
My only real concern with this subject is, as long as people believe these corals will simply start a new life somewhere else, after they bail out, there is no real need to understand what causes it, or how to prevent it. If people understand this is a death sentence, they may work to insure it doesn't happen in their tank.

What I'm about to say is far from anything that could be considered scientific evidence, so please take it for what it's worth.

I've lost track of the number of people, that have contacted me, after their elegance coral bailed out. This seems to be relatively common in this coral, when conditions are right. In every one of these cases, there was something wrong with the system that had the potential to interfere with calcification. Like high phosphates, or low calcium/alkalinity. Some of these corals lived for quite a long time. Six months plus. They often expanded as usual and even fed like normal, at least in the beginning. Unfortunately, and despite the best efforts of the hobbyists, none of these corals started laying down a new skeleton, and they all eventually died.
 
I have seen this study- wont look for the link after my last two fails! Its easy to find though.

LOL. I found it. That's a very very cool study. I'm still kinda confused as to how the polyps could hold on as their skeleton dissolved beneath them. Somehow they did, and remained attached throughout the entire process. Which is completely different than way we are dealing with here.
 
All right, guys, hold off the fisticuffs. I've got pix. The first is the frogspawn that grew from a popped head, sitting on the sand, where he lives. He's grown several heads.

IMG_0461.jpg


Excuse the aiptasia: I didn't plan on a guided tour.

Now here's the underside: the thing is living tissue, all over it, only the tiniest little area of 'bone' that's outside the branches, which are all slimey-living to the point where the new heads (several in number now) appear.

IMG_0462.jpg


And should you want to see the parent colony, this is it, dead center of all that hammer.

cleantank.jpg


I have a hammer that's regrown, too, but didn't want to disturb him. The frog is the more substantial, and I got a good shot.
 
It's all good.
My only real concern with this subject is, as long as people believe these corals will simply start a new life somewhere else, after they bail out, there is no real need to understand what causes it, or how to prevent it. If people understand this is a death sentence, they may work to insure it doesn't happen in their tank.

What I'm about to say is far from anything that could be considered scientific evidence, so please take it for what it's worth.

I've lost track of the number of people, that have contacted me, after their elegance coral bailed out. This seems to be relatively common in this coral, when conditions are right. In every one of these cases, there was something wrong with the system that had the potential to interfere with calcification. Like high phosphates, or low calcium/alkalinity. Some of these corals lived for quite a long time. Six months plus. They often expanded as usual and even fed like normal, at least in the beginning. Unfortunately, and despite the best efforts of the hobbyists, none of these corals started laying down a new skeleton, and they all eventually died.

There is no question that the majority of bail outs are from poor water quality. The ones that i have had survive-generally were fully shaded polyps-so my thinking is they were trying to drop away to more light. I talked to my former partner about our elegance fragging days- and he said that we never had any regrow that bailed-but he also didn`t recall any bailing to begin with. We used to force bud elegance, and I do remember some partial detacments that either reattached,budded or died-twenty years is a long time to remember. To the point of your original post to the OP- there is no doubt this is a husbandry situation that will not end well, in all likelyhood. Two diffrent coral leaving the skel at the same time means work must be done on the system before more animals are sacrificed.
 
thats a very pretty frogspawn skater, is the skeletal structure somewhat deformed? it looks kinda awkwardly shaped, or is that just refraction?
 
Nope, that's how it grew: it popped, floated around a bit, and then began knitting itself a new skeleton. It's taken, oh, about 3 years, but it's really starting to take off now. Makes a perfect little lump (as you see) when on its base; but flipped, it is oddly torqued. All of that will probably disappear into a larger and larger bone structure as the piece grows. Its mama (or papa, who knows?) tends to be round in appearance, but does have a kind of quirky, difficult-to-frag closeness about the heads.
 
!st of I would like to thank everybody that has sent a reply !!!
I did not know the depth this would take on.
I have had some hammers do this too. And when diving in Bali I have seen Lobos in a colony 15 feet across with to many heads to count.
I have in my Bio now, a small new colony of eu phyllia now and am patiently waiting for more growth, So I know it does happen.
In this tank I have battled with the customer on food control issues and have finally got them retrained. It is a 110 high and we all know they present flow challenges.
It did have High Phos, low Mag, Low Alk, and so on on the old tank syndrom.
It s now showing signs of recovery and the Bubble has settled in on the bottom. wee will see.
I will see about pics soon and do hope to see more on this topic.
Thanks again all.
 
Good luck- in a stable tank there is a chance I suppose- but I have not seen a bubble survive long term from something like this. The only LPS i have seen recover detacment that wasn`t a braching type is the trachaphila. Back when I used to frag a lot of LPS, the bubble corals were one of the hardest to do. This always struck me as unusual, due to the fact they were always hardier than the other corals that fragged easier, but their recovery was much longer- and they were more susceptible to infections and jelly problems.
 
As you can see, it's debated. I think the short answer is, euphyllias don't have much trouble at this, but other corals, particularly big 'wall' type corals may. Bubble is so similar in other requirements to euphyllias that I'd sure give it a try (you know it's a 'shade' coral, liking lower light)---but the chances of success on a big wall are not good, unless maybe it depends on predators nipping it into smaller one-mouth bits. [not something I want to try!]

I have had success, too, with a really gappy fox, via severing the ripply 'wall' bone structure and gluing the resultant halves into a matching curve of each other: it makes their food gathering far more efficient.
 
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