Devil's hand growth

[BennyFrank]

I've had this devil's hand for awhile but never remember it doing anything like this before. About a week ago there appeared to be some graying necrotic tissue on one of the limbs. I actually fragged this piece from a colony that decayed from the base up about a year ago (lost the rest of it unfortunately).

I thought it was happening again so I was getting ready to give it the chop, but first I blasted with a powerhead for a day to see if it would help. About two days later it opened back up and there was new growth where the dead tissue had been before. Is this normal growth activity for this coral? Below is the progression over about a week's time.

 

[jd474]

sounds like it's just sloughing/shedding. totally normal leather behavior (they don't have the luxury of power heads and able-minded aquarists in the wild!).

 

[alanmorehead]

Mine used to do the something similar when it was propagating itself. It started out where it would shrink for a few days before returning to full size, like a lot of my other leathers did. After a while it started have branches separate from the main colony (forming a ring at the base of a branch) and propagate itself with those pieces. Eventually it got to the point where I would see holes in the leather, then the holes would work their way towards the sides and that whole chunk would break off. I ended up with tons of frags without ever cutting the thing

This pic shows both the holes and the way the branches would fall off

 

[huskerreef]

mine does the same as alan's, it routinely looses chunks as a way of sell propagating

 

[BennyFrank]

Very nice! How big does the coral need to get before it starts propagating in that way? or is there something else that triggers it?

 

[alanmorehead]

Very nice! How big does the coral need to get before it starts propagating in that way? or is there something else that triggers it?

Not sure if there's anything else that triggers it. Mine was about 6-8" in diameter when it was doing it