Does coral stress cause reproduction?

[EdSnyder]

Just thinking today. Some plants will flower in a stressed or crowded environment. They try to procreate as a means to survive. Are there any corals out there that behave this way?

I once pointed a powerhead at some green star polyps and some of them became dislodged and ended up attached on the other side of the tank. Was this procreation or did I just blow them off the rock?

 

[Sk8r]

Most things attempt to reproduce when something weird is going on --- those that don't probably are at a disadvantage. Of course they'll reproduce when things are good, too.

Dunno about the sexual repro---but polyp bailout by pocillopora, hammer, frog and torch is survival positive. Poci can get repro quite a lot---to the point of nuisance. The euphyllias bail---float, lodge, and in my tank, they grow new skeletons under the soft bodies. They start as a little dot and just keep going. And if reefers would just snag those runaways and put them in a shallow glass dish, and not touch them, they'd regrow, given good water.


Another that does it is plate coral: and brain coral---never toss a dead piece of that stuff: it comes up from the dead base: I've had maze brain regrow from totally dead skeleton, and I've seen plate break out in multiple little plate-lets atop a dead plate skeleton.

 

[rwb500]

many creatures will reproduce when stressed. the most obvious aquarium example i can think of is an anemone. they say that if its splitting a lot it could be a good thing, or a bad thing. but for corals, this would have to be limited to soft corals, because sps and lps do not sexually spawn in our aquariums, and the only other way for them to diversify is just to grow a lot, which is obviously a very slow process requiring optimal conditions.

but yes, i think your gsp might have released polyps because they didnt like the flow. I know gsp usually does not just drop off polyps for no reason. A long time ago i had anthelia pop up 3 feet away from my anthelia frag, but who knows why that happened.

obviously i am not an expert on any of this, just sharing my thoughts. good question.

edit- didnt know about polyp bailout!! good stuff. my lps collection is 4 frags.

 

[AndroidReef]

Happened to me with a hairy mushroom, it was huge around 5" diameter, then had a problem with light, 1 week under low light, and he started to split :S

 

[Sk8r]

Actually I've had stony spawn, but it was a scary event: thank goodness for good skimming.

 

[s4chico]

Good question.....really got me thinking. I have a green colored anemone that grew to around a foot across. Then it split into two and one of them moved to the other side of the tank. The piece that moved split two more times within a year. I bought a small rose bubble tip anemone (about 3 inches) and it found its way to the large green anemone that kept splitting and decided to park itself right next door. After 6-7 months, my rose bta grew to around 6 inches and then split last week.:beer: All the anemones look great, so I am very pleased that they have split. I hope my rose bta keeps splitting, but you really got me thinking as to why it's happening. Here's a pic of my rose bta a week after I got it and it had settled in.

 

[Moort82]

Sun corals will readily spawn in a tank and stress can be a major factor. I've seen quite a few shipments come in where the bags are almost orange with spores. The mother corals recover quickly and the babies are easy enough to grow on once settled.

 

[Danielnz]

Happened to me with a hairy mushroom, it was huge around 5" diameter, then had a problem with light, 1 week under low light, and he started to split :S

This happened to my hairy mushrooms too

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