How do euphyllia corals grow skeleton?

[milkton]

I've noticed that from the two bubble corals i have bought, they eventually detached itself from their skeleton (probably from some flow issues)... They looked okay (thriving) but eventually died off (seems natural as simple organisms such as zoanthellae could not possibly sustain such a complex creature without a proper gastrovascular cavity..) which brings me to question how euphyllia corals got their skeleton in the first place as bubble corals don't seem to be able to "regrow" their skeleton when detached...

Is it when they reproduce sexually, the skeleton grows with the organism from the zygote stage? Meaning, they will die without a skeleton?

I've never heard of a euphyllia growing its skeleton back after detaching nor have i heard of a euphyllia lasting more than a few weeks without a skeleton... please share..

 

[elegance coral]

The larvae doesn't begin laying down a skeleton until after it settles. The larvae forms a bond with the substrate, then concentrates calcium carbonate between itself and the substrate. The problem with a bailed out polyp, is that it must concentrate calcium carbonate at a pace that's faster than the dilution into the open water, in order to form a skeleton. When the polyp is attached, there is a very thin layer, of very slow moving water, between it and it's skeleton. Calcium carbonate can easily be concentrated in such conditions.

There is a moderator here at RC that had a bailed out euphyllia survive and start laying down new skeleton. I'm not sure how this took place, because it surely isn't the norm. Maybe, a piece of the original skeleton broke off and remained attached to the polyp??????? This could have retained a small area between the polyp and the piece of skeleton, where calcification could continue. Maybe, the polyp ended up in a crevice where water movement was slow enough to allow the concentration of calcium carbonate????? IDK.

The vast majority of these cases of "polyp bailout", fallow a period where parameters are off, causing a problem with calcification. Low alk/PH, low calcium, high phosphate, excessive flow...... The vast majority of these polyps do not survive. I've been studying elegance corals for over 20 years, and I've never seen, or heard of, an elegance surviving this. It is my belief, that if the area of the polyp responsible for calcification, is exposed to the open water of the system, any attempt at calcification will simply drift off with the flow.

 

[Patriot54]

^ I didn't know this, I thought it was common for the polyps to survive this. I have 4 little tiny torch corals that have survived this in my tank growing skeletons now!

 

[milkton]

appreciate the info elegance

^ I didn't know this, I thought it was common for the polyps to survive this. I have 4 little tiny torch corals that have survived this in my tank growing skeletons now!

wow, i have never heard of that before! do you happen to have any pics?? :lol2:

 

[ritter6788]

I have never experienced bail out from any of my corals but my frogspawn "drips" off new heads from time to time and they do survive. I guess the difference is that these have a tiny bit of skeleton on it. I had a tiny one that came off my frogspawn and it had just enough skeleton to glue down to a frag plug. It started to grow so I gave it away and it's a nice sized head right now.

 

[Patriot54]

appreciate the info elegance




wow, i have never heard of that before! do you happen to have any pics?? :lol2:

I can get some pictures

 

[Patriot54]

Here are my 4 baby torches. I've done some brief reading about polyp bailout, can someone tell me what it is?

Torch 1

Torch 2

Torch 3

Torch 4 (shot through the length of my tank)

I used to have 5 but I was battling an algae problem and I believe the algae got to it, or I scraped it off

 

[Patriot54]

The larvae doesn't begin laying down a skeleton until after it settles. The larvae forms a bond with the substrate, then concentrates calcium carbonate between itself and the substrate. The problem with a bailed out polyp, is that it must concentrate calcium carbonate at a pace that's faster than the dilution into the open water, in order to form a skeleton. When the polyp is attached, there is a very thin layer, of very slow moving water, between it and it's skeleton. Calcium carbonate can easily be concentrated in such conditions.

There is a moderator here at RC that had a bailed out euphyllia survive and start laying down new skeleton. I'm not sure how this took place, because it surely isn't the norm. Maybe, a piece of the original skeleton broke off and remained attached to the polyp??????? This could have retained a small area between the polyp and the piece of skeleton, where calcification could continue. Maybe, the polyp ended up in a crevice where water movement was slow enough to allow the concentration of calcium carbonate????? IDK.

The vast majority of these cases of "polyp bailout", fallow a period where parameters are off, causing a problem with calcification. Low alk/PH, low calcium, high phosphate, excessive flow...... The vast majority of these polyps do not survive. I've been studying elegance corals for over 20 years, and I've never seen, or heard of, an elegance surviving this. It is my belief, that if the area of the polyp responsible for calcification, is exposed to the open water of the system, any attempt at calcification will simply drift off with the flow.

After reading this, I can tell you that all of my torches are in areas of extremely low flow. Torches 1,3, and 4 are in their own little pockets. Torch 2 settled in a little crevice where it receives the most flow out of my baby torches. If this is indeed polyp bailout I'm sure I know the reason why. I went off to college and left my tank in the care of my mom, it went months without water changes and top off, there was algae growing everywhere, and my torch mother colony gets blasted with supper high flow. If this isn't polyp bailout, I've notice on several occasions that when my torch gets too big, some of its tentacles get sucked into my power head and get cut off. But I doubt they can regenerate this way.

 

[Aaliyah]

5 new heads

5 new heads

I sure like this site. I was woundering about this because I have 5 new heads growing out of liverock on the opposite side of my tank now for about 6 months. They are growing slow but are growing. I think they are hammers. The biggest is the size of a dime. I just looked again and I have 7 total. All my euphyllia is doing good and my mushroom cluster is dropping heads like crazy. My big hammer has lots of new heads. Conditions must be extremely well for everthing to be doing this. Ive had the mushroom cluster 20 plus heads for over a year and it started dropping 1 head a week. Rock is the size of a fist.

 

[Aaliyah]

my babies

my babies

After logging in I was able to see the pics that patriot 54 posted. The ones I have look the exact. Color and all. If your stll around please let me knw what they turned into.