Food distribution by corals

[Dingo Dog]

This is a picture of my Ruffled Ridge coral. In feeding small pellets to my fish, some of the pellets are grabbed up and slowly eaten by the yellow polyps.

Does the whole coral benefit or is the benefit more localized to the area surrounding the individual polyp that eats the pellet?

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/55092Yellow_ruffeled_ridge_coral_May_06.jpg

 

[fambrough]

Dino Dog,

I would think that it benefits the whole coral. The coral in question does not look like colonial polyps in the traditional sense, but like a coral with many polyps feeding a common mesentery system. BUT I am not sure. I am partly replying because I want to know more about that coral. It is super cool. Can you tell me what genus it's in? Does it have any other common names? I can't find it in Borneman. Please share!

I hope you get a better answer to your question.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Dingo Dog]

The link below is to Reefer Madness who sells them. I bought mine locally about 2 years ago. It is a Turbinaria coral from the Indo-Pacific. It's called a Yellow Ruffled Ridge coral. It grows very slowly. I enjoy seeing how it continues to form itself as it grows. It's also pretty amazing to watch the polyps as they slowly consume the small pellets which are about the same diameter as the polyp. I also feed Cyclopeeze and dose DT phytoplankton which it loves.

Hope this information helps. Thanks for your reply.

http://www.reefermadness.us/HardCoralPages/Turbinaria_reniformis.htm

 

[fambrough]

And thank you for the reply. Ah, I should have guessed turbinaria! Thanks for the link, too. I will plan to acquire one.

Yours looks better than other photos of reniformis. The base color looks more red and I do not notice yellow margins. Anyway, lovely coral.

 

[Snowboarda42]

I have that in my tank too, although Ive never seen it eat anything

 

[Dingo Dog]

I'll try to get a pic of it eating and send it to you both in an email if you'd like. I have a bow front tank which is challenging sometimes for getting a clear close-up.
I've also noticed that mine is more of a redish-orange vs. yellow but don't know why.

 

[Dingo Dog]

Actually, I was able to photographs in sequence of a polyp eating a pellet. If you can copy and paste them in a different viewer you can better see the mouth of the polyp closing over the pellet.

Here are the links in sequence:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/55092Yellow_ruffle_ridge_eating_pellet_1.jpg
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/55092IMG0001_1_1.JPG
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/55092IMG0001_2.jpg