The bottomless plate...

[Sk8r]

Can a coral eat itself to death?
My orange short-tentacled plate, about 2.5 inches diam., started out withdrawn, flat and scarcely had any extensions. Then I fed it a bit of shrimp. The next day I fed it again.
From time to time since, it scarfs up pellet food (with garlic) and takes it down.
It's extended fat little tentacles. It's even larger by night.
Today I was spot-feeding another coral and a way too large piece of injudiciously chopped shrimp got away from me, a good 1/16th inch cross-section of a fat shrimp, which I never should have had in the tank, and it floated, guess where?
I couldn't figure out whether to take it away or not. A crab tried to steal it, and had no luck. I finally gave up. It took it 3 hours to work that morsel down---I was afraid for it the while. Now it's peaked up like Vesuvius and is digesting the shrimp, looking fat and happy.
Is this going to hurt it? Should I feed it until it quits eating?
Anybody have any experience with this creature? Right now it seems healthy, but it has a way of getting any food that rolls into the tank.

 

[Drewcipher]

I have a small short tentacle who has also eaten way to much food before. Always seems to recover.

 

[Sk8r]

It makes me worry about my bottom-sitting fish! I guess I won't worry about its health, as long as it's still stuffing itself voluntarily...

 

[uscgbeachbum]

Same thing happend to me back when I was having temp swings (which I didn't even think of) and tissue was receeding. I thought feeding would help. I was feeding a few things and crabs pulled everything out...survival of the fitest I guess. But somehow the fungia got ahold of everything. The mouth was opened up to accomodate something at least an inch wide. It was crazy. It "stood" about an inch taller for the next couple of days. It seemed all too happy afterwards.

 

[Sk8r]

You know, if my yellow watchman is ever missing, I'm going to look to "Audrey," here---whoever said plate was hard to keep? Hard to keep at bay, imho!