Sun Coral, babies on mothers skeleton

[Rob in Puyallup]

About 6 weeks ago I received a Sun Coral from a vendor in Clearwater, Florida. (I live in Washington State). It arrived in terrible condition and within a couple days in my tank all of the decomposing flesh had been removed from it's "bones" by my hermits.

Within a couple weeks I noticed several orange spots on the skeleton. I got my cell phone out and put on it's macro lens. I was quite surprised to find that those spots were tiny Sun Coral Polyps. Perhaps some of the mothers "flesh" had remained viable and produced clones, or something.

Is this normal?

 

[Rob in Puyallup]

PS... I'm guessing these small fry are able to catch the "pods" in the tank as they are, still, after a couple weeks, doing very well.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

I would feed them baby brine three times a week.

 

[stunreefer]

Is this normal?

Yes, this can happen. There was a very small amount of tissue left that produced these "buds".

Keep feeding as mentioned, although personally I would chop up Mysis. Brine provides little nutrition.

 

[Rob in Puyallup]

Still doing good and appear to be growing.

 

[mike nickerson]

That's awesome! I just took some frag disks out of my sump and notice my dead sun coral has also created little baby sun corals. Should I just leave it in there or move it and try and spot feeding it?

 

[Rob in Puyallup]

I'm thinking if they're alive they must be feeding where they're living. I haven't been target feeding mine. There are lots of breeding amphipods and copepods in my tank, guess that's what mine are eating.

 

[mike nickerson]

I'll just leave mine in the sump then and watch it closely then.

 

[eel guy]

wow cool lol