Got my coral book today still confused

Ronny#66

New member
I purchased a button polyp I have zooanthids called polyps and a finger leather has polyps so whats the difference between a polyp package you purchase and a single coral like a green nemthea that has polyps that open up to let it feed.

Ronny
 
I realy hate reading have hard time keeping focused and he uses such big words all the time. I'm just old and don't absorb like i used too

Ronny
 
Using polyp to describe a type of coral is really a bad practice. A polyp is a part of a coral. In cases like zoanthids, the majority of the coral is the polyp, so the terms tend to get used synonymously. When someone refers to an entire coral as a polyp, they're generally talking about something in the Zoanthidae family.
 
the polyp is essentially the living portion of the coral. soft corals have tissues that extend beyond that to anchor themselves to substrates(rocks, sand, etc.) and stony corals deposit calcium carbonate skeletons. some corals like your yellow button polyps don't have much tissue to them aside from the polyp itself, like IslandCrow says, and are commonly referred to as just polyps. it's a name thing.

think of a polyp as sorta like a leaf on a tree. it's extending, trapping light, photosynthesizing, contributing to the life of the tree. if there was a leaf growing out of the ground you'd probably just call it a leaf. that's kinda like calling button polyps or zoanthids polyps. since those corals don't grow the same way as others, and don't come with 'trunks' or 'branches' they're sorta like a leaf growing out of the ground.
 
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