Strange Plate Coral Behaviour

[simion3]

So I just turned off my return and my powerheads so I could feed the tank. Put in some Reef-Roids for the corals then went to the kitchen to get some mysis shrimp and when I come back my green plate coral has it's mouth open with what looks like a tentacle poking out of its mouth and its releasing something, looks kind of smokey. Any insights? I've never seen it do this before. Its been doing it for like the last 5 minutes. It definitly doesnt look like its expelling waste or zooxanthalae.

 

[lizardking38]

Do you have a picture of it?

 

[raddogz]

Spawning would be my guess.

 

[simion3]

I couldn't get a picture of it unfortunately. Maybe it was spawning I thought it was wierd being it was in the middle of the day, I always thought corals spawned at night.

 

[Sk8r]

Mine did this when I first got it, and hasn't repeated the process since. It might be a response to stress, since it was about the first 24 hours it was in the tank. Since then it's gone on to great extension and color, so whatever happened, it wasn't zooxanthellae leaving.