Candy cane heads.... will they live if detached??

[Floridaboy704]

My LFS has a frag of candy cane that has lost 90% of its heads. (no big suprise) I can see the heads laying on the sand. They still have great color to them and he said I could have the loose heads for free. My question is, should I bother getting them? Im guessing if the heads fall off its a bad sign and it will die. What do you guys think?? If they will live how do I attach them to something??

 

[stunreefer]

If its just their flesh/tissue laying on the ground I wouldn't bother. It they have skeleton underneath, then they're just little frags and take 'em!

I have actually had LPS, indo Acanthastrea Lordhowensis to be specific, grow back from just a little fleshy clump before. It was a small colony, maybe 3-4 heads, that I fed heavily one night and woke up to an emerald that had tore him open to eat the food out! Most of the tissue receded and died, but the very top polyp was literally stripped off of its skeleton, and was laying on the sand. There was no evident skeleton at all behind this "polyp" (I picked it up to hopefully glue it on a frag disk, but there was nothing to glue), and he eventually grew enough skeleton behind his tissue to glue down to a disk, and is now around 8 polyps with full skeleton and all! I even tried to offer the polyp to someone (for free) while they were picking up some frags, and they wouldn't take it because they thought it was on its way out for sure... not the case.

I guess long story short is you might as well take at least one home, see what happens! Again, unless its just dying green (or whatever color) tissue laying on the sand. GL

 

[Floridaboy704]

To be quite honest, the heads laying on the ground look much better than the ones attached to the skeleton! From what I can see no skeleton is under the heads.

 

[jadeguppy]

I have one that lost a head. I left it in the tank to see what would happen. It is continuing to grow. Although I couldn't see skeleton, when I picked it up I was surprised to find the underside hard. As soon as I get glue I'm going to glue the very tip of the bottom to a rock. I say go for it.

 

[stunreefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12369622#post12369622 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Floridaboy704
To be quite honest, the heads laying on the ground look much better than the ones attached to the skeleton! From what I can see no skeleton is under the heads.

If this is the case I would snag 'em up!

If its been more then a few days and they still look good sitting there, IMHO, I'd take them all home! If they were going to die, the loose tissue generally doesn't make it more than 48 hours, at least IME. GL!

 

[DaveJ]

I believe this is one way they reproduce. There are a couple of guys on my local board who have had this happen. Usually what they say happens is the head will elongate and kinda melt off leaving the polyp detached. It will then continue to grow and the place it left will as well.

 

[dsoz]

This happened to me. Once they get a little bigger, they will start to grow a little "seed" of skeleton on the backside. Glue it to a rock, and put it in a place that it has room to grow, because grow it will.

dsoz